Turning Point
by Meg2
Summary: Follows 'Alliance', and the author's 'Dead' series. This is the end of the series that began with 'Dead and Gone, With The Wind'.
1. Chapter 1

A/N- This story follows 'Alliance' and those that precede it, as noted on my Profile page. This is my one and only story about Sookie being turned, something that Charlaine Harris has said will not happen in her Sookie Stackhouse Series. As I had Claudine suggest in 'Alliance', there is much to be said about the potential for unkindness in asking someone to love you and know they will lose you within a short (to them) span of time. This story contemplates potential outcomes of Sookie making a different choice from the one Charlaine Harris suggests.

Sookie and the myriad characters of the Sookieverse are creations of Charlaine Harris. I hope she doesn't mind my borrowing them and embroidering on them.

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**Turning Point**

**November, 2018**

_On a field of battle in a heavily forested area somewhere well south of Kitzbühel, Austria, the fairy Prince, Niall Brigant, appeared with her. She was a beautiful blonde haired, blue-eyed vampire dressed all in black. The Fae and their leader Hans immediately noticed the locket around her neck, bearing the Brigant 'B'. She was Niall's family. Releasing his hand, she walked forward toward the two sides, moving silently, at a casual speed. All the vampires had noticed was that she was one of them, which inclined them to trusting her a bit more. Her eyes, though, sparkled yet did not glow in the manner usual for a vampire. The Fae and vampire forces stared at Brigant and the woman. It was odd to see a Fae of any sort in the company of a vampire, let alone a fairy with one. As she approached the leaders of the two opposing forces, the Raedself suddenly appeared and her eyes widened as she smiled. She nodded graciously toward the woman and then spoke softly to the leader of the Fae. The German vampires' leader, Georg, nodded solemnly to the vampire woman. Who was she? And why on earth would the Prince of the Fae travel with a vampire? Perhaps it was really that woman… but here? In Austria? It couldn't be._

_After consulting quietly with Niall Brigant, the vampire moved gracefully and silently through the ranks of both sides. There were hundreds of them amassed but she moved deftly among them, as if looking for something. The waning full moon illuminated the clearing fully. The only sounds audible were now the nighttime sounds of crickets, frogs and the occasional owl or bat. She came to a stop at the vampire leader's second and leaned toward him slightly. Her eyes illuminated with coppery sparks as she met his glowing eyes. She stood before him and seemed to take something in, nodding. Then she turned her eyes back toward the Fae, seeming to search for something or someone. She moved across the neutral ground and walked among the Fae. They parted the path she walked with fear. Her nostrils did not even flare as she walked among them, however, which was odd for a vampire among the Fae, especially the fairies. She finally came to a stop before a very tall, thin old man and her eyes narrowed as she seemed to take something in. Then she walked back out to the neutral space between the two forces and motioned to Niall Brigant, the Raedself, Hans, and Georg. They moved toward her to listen._

"_Okay, there is fault on both sides. The vampire's leader Georg's second, Ricard is his name? He struck against the Fae village in revenge because Siebold's granddaughter, who is only part fae, rejected an offer of a business alliance that was shaded with other implications which she did not feel comfortable accepting. Siebold meanwhile has been rather inaccurate to Hans, his chief, about the nature of the dispute because Heike, his granddaughter, had a prior relationship with another vampire, which they keep secret. Ricard knew this other vampire. Ricard thought he could just parlay the situation into a little business and pleasure for himself but Heike doesn't like Ricard and rejected him. Ricard has overtly lied to Georg Herdt about the nature of any 'offense' from the Fae. He was basically offended that Heike said 'No.' Siebold was offended that Ricard lied about why he burned down Siebold's businesses in revenge for Heike spurning him. This is really a personal matter between the two men and should not affect either population beyond that. Each has misled his leader about aspects of what has really taken place. Both should be censured but if you want my opinion, there's a lot more blame to lay at Ricard's feet. He tried to destroyed their livelihood because he was angry to be rejected. There is no war here. Just a woman who does not wish to be involved with Ricard, for reasons that now appear very obvious. Heike's a smart woman."_

_She nodded to the two leaders, Hans Krentzmer and Georg Herdt. They nodded to her in return and each looked back their men involved in the dispute. Niall Brigant and the Raedself smiled faintly to each other. Georg Herdt turned back to the female vampire and said simply,_

"_Who are you?"_

"_A friend."_

"_What is your name?"_

"_Sookie. You may call me Sookie," she said, her eyes meeting his as she scanned him._

"You_ are Sookie Northman?" his eyes widened and then he clicked his heels together bowing his head._

_She bowed her head in return acknowledgment. She really just wanted to get back home and go back to resting. Niall had awakened her in the late afternoon from a dead rest. It took every ounce of energy to get here looking alert and presentable. She was too young to be up so early. And this wasn't the first time, either._

_With a quick nod to Niall Brigant, and the Raedself, she simply disappeared._

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**Turning Point**

**I.**

**Mid-September 2014**

I was delighted with the score. A 90 was pretty darn high, considering the passing score on the Louisiana Bar Exam was a 70. I smiled and my heart swelled. I was a lawyer! A real actual lawyer! Sookie Stackhouse Northman, former barmaid, was a _lawyer_! It was one of those moments in life that you savored. While I'd waited for the results of the mid-July Bar Exam, I'd been on pins and needles even though I knew that I must have passed. There was just this feeling of apprehension at times that overruled my common sense. I had sailed through major portions of the exam, completely confident in my responses. I didn't like the torts section, though and had stressed about it. Liability was not my area. I liked things that were nice and well defined like contracts and written laws. Constitutional law was my particular favorite.

In the months that followed the Bar exam I'd been incredibly busy with my work as a liaison for the Alliance. We were now up to twenty-two states, with another six planning to join on January 1st. Sometimes I'd thought that Eric had come up with the idea of a liaison for supernatural relations merely in order to keep me busy in Louisiana and provide me with a job and salary without my complaining too much. He had denied it vehemently and said that creating such a position for me was so obviously a sensible thing to do in our state. But it had quickly evolved into a serious position, with a fair amount of power and responsibility. State after state had lined up and wanted me to work as their liaison. I was now effectively a troubleshooter for any problems between vampires and other races- the Fae, demons, Weres, weres witches and regular humans of twenty-two states. People took my analyses of things, and even my recommendations, quite seriously. Stan, Roberto, Eric and Joseph basically acted as if my word was law on the issues in which I became involved in their states. Some of the other states had started to follow suit. On a typical Monday morning I might have well over a hundred emails in my Inbox dealing with just liaison business. Sheriffs from the four principal states would send me weekly updates of any issues in their Areas, just to keep me posted about even potential problems. It was really more than a full time job and if Liesel hadn't had my back in my last year of law school and while I studied for the Bar, I would have quit. Liesel was older than I was, a former Were, and I thought she had much more experience than I did, but for whatever reason, everyone seemed to want me. I was so tied to every group (vampires, the Fae, Weres, weres, witches, even some demons) that I guess it made it seem unlikely I'd be very biased toward vampires. And I guess being a telepath had also helped. I could read humans, Weres, weres, sometimes the Fae and occasionally, vampire minds. But that last bit was kind of dicey, both a well kept secret and an erratic occurrence. I could even read a bit in the mind of my half-demon friend, Rico. I tried to stay out of his mind, though. It was a bit scary in there at times.

So I had finally arrived at a point in my life where things looked like they were going smoothly, where I had achieved a number of my goals. I was a lawyer. I had a position of respect in the supernatural community. I had family and good friends. And yet, rather than enjoy it as I should, somehow I felt the fragility of it all. As Claudine said, when I talked about it with her, I was getting a healthy dose of my own mortality. I was about a decade older than most of my law school peers, and while I'd actually felt that gave me an immense advantage in terms of focus and even insight, what I felt was mostly that time was just flying by. Lately, I'd glance over at Eric, who obviously hadn't changed even a bit in appearance since the day I'd met him, and I'd feel this odd tug. It wasn't as if I thought that Eric was going to leave me anytime soon because I was getting old. I had gotten past that one years ago. But rather I felt more keenly that perhaps I was leaving him behind. Every once in a while in the past few months there was a slight catch in his voice whenever he mentioned anything about the long term. My mortality was the third person in every one of our conversations about the future. He maintained his steadfast position of never bringing up the subject of turning me. But if _I_ brought up the subject of being turned, it was a different story. Several times in recent months, I'd been asking questions about what happened when a vampire turned a partner. I'd kept tabs on some couples I knew out of curiosity to see just how the partnerships turned out. Of course there were friends, like Roberto and Liesel, but there were also others like the dancers Sean O'Rourke and his partner Layla. They were still together as a real couple after more than a decade. Of course, I could remind myself that Bill and Lorena had been together for fifty years and look how that turned out. But I'd never mention Bill and Lorena to Eric, though, because his eyes flashed with anger at the mere suggestion that any relationship we had should ever be compared to theirs.

There were lots of questions I had about vampire couples. A long time ago, Eric had told me that vampires rarely mate with each other because of the resultant power over one another, which was a forever kind of deal. But I knew of at least several real couples, including most notably Roberto and Liesel. And Roberto was pretty old. About 600 years old. I didn't know if they continued to share blood after Liesel had been turned. It seemed like a very personal question that I had no plans on asking. But for instance, the dancer couple I knew, Sean and Layla, shared blood regularly as part of their dance routine. Sean was about 300 years old according to the database. Of course, they weren't political figures. Layla, who Sean had turned near death, wasn't going to have a lot of power over Sean on a dance floor. Vampires in the arts seemed to have much more easy going lives. But it made me wonder seriously about what happened when there was real imbalance between the ages of a vampire couple. One night when out of the blue I asked Eric about what happened with vampire couples, using Roberto and Liesel as an example, he seemed as if he was trying very hard not to give too much enthusiasm away about my choosing to even bring up the topic.

"Well, obviously a lot would be based on trust, right? By the time she was turned, they'd known each other twelve, maybe fifteen years. And I guess she'd had enough of his blood by then so he should really be able to read her very well, and know how far to trust her as to whether they continue to swap blood."

I nodded thoughtfully while trying to repair a nail polish smudge on my left thumbnail. I was twisted enough to quite like being bitten myself, but I hadn't bitten Eric in a long time, not since we had become lovers again eight years before. I'd stopped because I'd been afraid I'd end up turning. But the urge… sometimes I still had to fight the urge to bite Eric. I wondered what would happen with that urge if I was turned. Do partners just naturally have the urge to bite one another? How easy is it to control it? Was it still as pleasurable to be bitten after you've been turned? I had so many questions but wasn't ready to verbalize them.

Eric had hesitated a moment, as if not wanting to press his luck, but then said, "Of course, you know how much I trust you."

A few weeks after that he came in on a conversation I was having with Pam about whether or not a new vampire could really survive on True Blood alone, which was the official party line of the American Vampire League. Pam was typically sarcastic about that idea.

"Why would anyone _want_ to? Ugh! Hardly worth being turned at all if you can't have real blood, Sookie." She immediately stiffened when she realized that Eric had come into the room.

Over the past eight years I had become very aware of the fact that Eric did not want Pam deviating from some framework that he established. It was like Thalia being clearly prohibited from saying anything in my presence about any serious violence she'd wrought as a result of her position as head of security. I felt like they all had a copy of some position paper he'd drafted and that they were to stick to some official Eric-defined statements when answering any of my questions about being turned, or about vampire topics that might be off-putting to me. Really, I got the feeling from Pam and Thalia, who were the only ones I'd ever really be in a position to ask, that Eric would prefer that I only talk to him about any questions I had. Thalia almost invariably told me to ask Eric if I asked her anything she thought she should be cautious answering. Pam I could get information out of, but I knew she risked crossing Eric if I got information I didn't like.

So that night Eric stared at Pam with arms crossed. She made some excuse after a minute or two about needing to go check on something. Eric looked at me intently and then changed the subject, asking when I was going to Dallas to see Stan's crew about a problem with a group of Fae who were definitely not nice sweet fairies and who, in a real turnabout, were causing problems for some vampires in Ft. Worth. Stan wanted me to go as soon as possible. Evidently it was becoming a serious problem. Eric thought I should take Rico with me for added protection.

It was getting to be a habit to go places with Rico when I had to deal with anything other than fairies. With the revelation about the Fae three years before and the liberal laws in the US protecting them, more and more Fae were emigrating to the US. It had become a serious problem in some areas. Unfortunately, not only fairies were moving to the US. There were many Fae who are, shall we say, less appealing and far less controlled than your average fairy. The public didn't know about those Fae. They only knew about beautiful and charming fairies. I probably knew more about the Fae than anyone else not substantially Fae on the entire continent. In the past year more than a third of my liaison issues were Fae related. I had even resolved an issue in a non-Alliance state back in June, heading up to Idaho with Rico and Hubert, our other part-Fae, part demon security person. The King of Idaho had a serious problem with an afanc, a monstrous variety of Fae that lived in lakes and consumed people and livestock. The vampires of his state were getting blamed for the deaths and several of them had been eaten while trying to get the creature to leave. (Afancs were not even above eating the dead, unlike some Fae. Really they were more like demons than the Fae.) Afancs were meaner and more voracious than kelpies. Trying to get the afanc to leave and not go to a _more_ densely populated area had not been an easy task. I frequently told Rico I thought he and Hubert were the reason I wasn't being presently being digested after that encounter. We finally had to set fire to the lake he was inhabiting to get him to leave. He was not happy and departed. Of course, there was the issue of the lake cleanup but the vampires dealt with that happily. Idaho was joining the Alliance in January. A lot of states really liked having the liaison services as part of the benefit of being an Alliance state.

As we lay in bed close to dawn that night, Eric asked me why I was asking Pam anything about being turned instead of asking him.

"She's more inclined to be upfront with me. She has no agenda. She doesn't give me sharply edited information, either." Eric had never lied but was certainly more inclined to give me the expurgated version of anything that had to do with becoming a vampire.

"Pam also doesn't know as much. She's never turned anyone."

"Okay, what about True Blood if you've been newly turned? Can a vampire really live on True Blood the way the AVL says they can."

"I'd be inclined to agree with what Pam told you. There are plenty of donors and willing partners for any new vampire. There's no need to rely on bottled blood as anything other than a supplement or a way to get by in between or in social settings where feeding on a human is inappropriate."

I struggled with my real questions, which were harder for me to ask. "What if a person didn't want to be with other people. I mean for most vampires blood and sex go together, right?"

"Well, then I guess you just don't have sex with your donors, Sookie," he said with a chuckle. "It's a personal choice, is it not? But after a few centuries of fidelity, even you might have a different take on things."

"What if a person didn't. Have a different take, I mean." He was already using that 'you' I noticed, as if sure this was 'me'.

"When you were a child and you envisioned your future, did you think it would be what it is now?"

"Morally, _yes_. Yes, you bet I did. Did I think I'd be married to some wily vampire? No, I didn't. I also didn't think I'd ever go to college or be a lawyer. In fact, I guess I didn't think I was going to be anything other than a barmaid until about the time we got married. But did I think I'd get married and be faithful, of course I did. And I promised it, too."

"Well, be that as it may, after several hundred years, anyone can get bored, no matter how well-intentioned they are. But I believe that some people do mate for life, even long life, so I guess again, a lot depends on personal choice. I think it's possible to really love your partner but desire others and even be with others, but I also think it's possible to be completely faithful. It's a _choice_. And a lot depends on the relationship. Vampires are by nature very sexual, Sookie. It would take great resolve not to indulge in any sexual relationships with donors at all. But it's definitely possible."

Eric knew fidelity was a big thing with me. He'd managed it so far, but I guess when you're 1100 or so, managing to be with one person for eight years probably seems like the blink of an eye. But what about centuries? I started thinking about how to ask him more but he said,

"Shall we cut to the chase because I'm going to be dead in about another five minutes."

"You got bored with Pam." How's that for cutting to the chase?

"I did _not_ get bored with Pam, first of all. And I did not _love_ Pam. I am very attached to Pam, I care about her a great deal. But when I turned Pam, I was turning her to have someone attractive to fuck and to be a companion. I was lonely. I was _already_ bored. In the end, I really do not like having a succession of partners in whom I have no interest, even if it is just for food. It gets old. In those times it was considerably riskier to have a human partner for any length of time, unless it was a prostitute or someone about whom society did not care. And they were not very attractive partners. You couldn't expect to glamour a succession of women for sex in one place unless it was a very large population and no one was keeping tabs on the number of people being 'attacked'. Given the era, it was a very obvious thing if these women had been having sex and it would also create problems for them in terms of the social mores. Of course, there's the option of having sex and killing your partner but, in addition to attracting perhaps more even attention, killing a succession of partners is really rather unappealing. I really only enjoy killing people who have offended my sensibilities. So moving from place to place becomes an important consideration. A tiresome consideration. Pam was a c_ompanion_. I have never loved Pam in a romantic sense."

"You _killed_ Pam, Eric. To have a 'companion', you _killed_ her." I said. As soon as I said it I realized it would tick him off. This was no different from what his sire had done to him and part of me had never gotten past the fact that he had done the same to Pam.

"_No_, _I_ _made her_ _immortal_," he said with his jaw slightly clenched. "I did not kill her and then say, hmmm, maybe I should turn her instead. I selected her with the _intent_ to turn her. I treated her carefully, gently. I was kind to her. I was careful not to hurt her. Remember how I, myself, was treated by my sire. I was _very_ kind to Pam. You can feel free to ask her. We were together for a long time and her interests clearly expanded. I was not offended. We did not love each other."

"But you shared blood with her?"

"No. No, I did not let her have my blood after she was turned. I didn't know her. I would never have risked such a thing. Pam is a great success in terms of someone I chose to turn Sookie. But when we were together there was no way I could have known enough about her to have trusted sharing my blood with her."

"Well, I really don't get what the point is of turning a partner if you don't think you'll stay together. It seems that so many couples end up splitting up or going wrong or not really being couples that then I really don't get what the point would be of a vampire turning a partner or spouse. I mean, you might even get tired of the person faster than if they were human and useful as food."

He propped himself up on his elbow and looked at me even though we were in the dark. "Lover, first of all those relationships you're considering were not previously defined from the standpoint of an real romantic relationship. They were not based on love or any kind of partnership. They were arbitrary relationships that became attachments, much like my relationship with Pam. There is no comparison to a romantic relationship that is then redefined as a vampire couple. That is something rare and unique. What Roberto and Liesel have is a real relationship. The point, if you really love your partner, is staying with them. It's definitely not the kind of choice one makes without very careful consideration. But like anything else, even if you really care for the person, it's no guarantee it's still going to work in the long term. How is that any different from any committed relationship or human marriage? There is always the risk things won't work out. But there are good risks and bad risks. Look, I'm going to conk out. When you want to talk again, ask me. But you go ahead and ask Pam about who got bored with whom, alright? Just ask her."

I already knew the answer to that question. Pam had told me almost a decade before.

More than a month later, the night I got my Bar exam score, we had an informal celebration. Very impromptu, with about 30 people who worked at the compound, all of whom were used to my studying incessantly. Thalia and Anne teased me about having to get used to my going about naked, without my books. Pam and Tan were having fun telling lawyer jokes and calling me JD. I was so happy, laughing and all smiles that night. Once during the evening I glanced over at Eric and saw that he was just watching me. The way he looked at me and smiled just warmed my heart. That night in bed, after a different kind of celebration in which I was repeatedly called 'Sookie Northman, Esquire' at rather outrageous moments and to much laughter on my part, Eric looked over at me and said,

"You're the only person I have ever met with whom I could happily spend eternity."

I couldn't reply. He simply took my breath away.


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

I don't ever think I'll forget the look on Eric's face when I told him. It was the third week of September, shortly after I found out I'd passed the Bar exam. Rather than being triumphant, which I guess would have been so easy at that point, he looked so... moved. He didn't speak at first. I just felt this swell of his emotions. He smiled and nodded. Finally, about twenty minutes later, looking at me with glowing eyes, he asked if I was really sure. Yes, I really was sure. I wanted to stay with him. I didn't want to imagine him alone. I couldn't imagine the world otherwise, without our being side by side. It was the right thing to do.

I decided to pretty much do it as soon as possible. It was a really simple choice as to the timing, I thought. I was at a great point in my life, both personally and professionally, and I didn't think that it would be good to press my luck. Look at what had happened with Liesel, developing leukemia, going through the agony of all the treatments and then finally, in the end, deciding that the only way to stay with Roberto, as he wished, was to be turned. Liesel had been through the ringer. She commented all the time that she was lucky she still had hair, considering all the chemo. How strongly she had resisted, only to be turned because it was the last option. I thought that rather than risk external circumstances pushing me to make the choice, I should just actively choose to move forward with it. Besides, I didn't want Eric to feel in any way that I hadn't made the choice for _him_, for _us._ To feel that other circumstances had brought about my choice. Not that I thought there was anything wrong with Liesel's choice. But it just wasn't my style. In true Sookie fashion, if that was what I decided to do, I'd do it.

_After_ I decided I'd do it, I did have concerns, but at this point they were really professional, since Eric and I had pretty much worked out an agreement on the personal part. Professionally, the concerns were potentially serious ones. There were instances in which turning someone vampire failed to secure some talent that the human had had. The obvious concern was my telepathy, which was necessary my work for Roberto, and still a major boon in my liaison work. Stan had been turned and not fully retained his telepathic gift. What if I could read vampires but not humans or Weres or the Fae? What if I could 'send' but not 'receive', just like Stan? I discussed it with Roberto and suggested that if things went wrong with me, that he should count on trying to use Barry for the casino. He did not seem very thrilled with the idea, but it wasn't as if I was going to change my plan because of my part-time job. Plus, part of me wondered if, after all of the years of steadily having Eric's blood, maybe the telepathy might be fine. Sometimes I glowed a bit in the dark after having only small amounts of Eric's blood. Maybe I wasn't so far from being turned after all, and since my telepathy was fine and dandy at this point, maybe it wouldn't be affected. I doubted Stan had been bound to his sire beforehand and even if he had been, he probably hadn't had a slow and steady supply of the sire's blood for years as I had.

In the very back of my mind, I thought to myself that there was always Hunter, whose gift was a secret I held closely. It would provide a very secure income for Hunter should he wish to work as a telepath. Barry and I were still pretty much it on the human telepath front in the States, at least working in the supe community. And I'd made a fortune from my work as a telepath in recent years. Roberto was my only steady job specifically as a telepath, but that was largely by choice. Roberto was very much on the up and up, gave me a contract, worked according to and within the law. I really liked Roberto and I liked working for him. In contrast, two years before I'd had a huge argument with Winston, the King of Missouri, who had summarily killed two people (a Were and a vampire) involved in a state budget extortion scheme without any legal or judicial involvement. It was a complete violation of our agreement for my services and I'd informed him that not only would I never work directly for him as a telepath again, but that he could tell his Sheriffs that they could sign any documents attesting to their promises vis a vis my future work requirements _in their own blood_ as per a fae ritual that guaranteed a person's word or resulted in grave harm if they broke their word. Since Roberto, Stan, Eric and Joseph really didn't like Winston very much, I got away with it. Eric had been shaking his head when he heard that one but Stan just laughed. Stan got a real kick out of me at times, calling me the 'little Firebrand'. I had seldom lost my temper in the years I'd worked as a liaison or telepath within the Alliance, but when I had, it certainly made spectacular waves.

After I decided that I was going to be turned I had to tell a number of people about my decision in short order. I mostly wrote letters to friends and family, wanting them to understand my choice. I didn't tell some people in person because I didn't want any arguments or comments. Jason for instance. He got my letter and barely commented. But I had the distinct impression when I talked to him that he was planning to tell Eric off. I knew Eric could handle that just fine. I'd told everyone that I was taking three weeks off from work to have a buffer of time. A few of my regular contacts I told personally.

Of course, there were all the more frivolous details of getting prepared for being turned. Following the advice of Liesel and Pam, I made sure my hair was a length I really liked. I got waxed and had my eyebrows done. I had my nails done just the way I wanted them. I'd lost just few more pounds so I was almost a size 6. I'd lost so much weight studying for the Bar when I was so busy all the time and really bad about skipping meals. So I guessed I was ready to go. Pam said I really didn't look older than when she had first met me, almost eleven years before.

We planned that I'd just staying in bed during the big change. So I kept to a liquid diet for a few days and then fasted the day I was to be turned. I'd heard from Pam that there were frequently 'issues' with corpses. Since I wanted to awake clean and in my own bed, I figured it was easier that way.

Niall had not taken my choice as I expected. In fact, he was a little odd about it. He didn't seem at all surprised and was pretty neutral about it. He didn't make any protest, which I thought was rather out of character.

The day I was turned, I sat outside listening to the birds in the garden. I got just a light tan. Claudine came and sat with me, holding my hand. I was totally determined that I would still be able to spend time with my Fae family. Especially Claudine. I did not want them to be unsafe with me. Claudine cried, but she seemed as if she understood my choice. I reminded her of her words eight years before, when she had told me that marrying Eric and _not_ being willing to stay with him was unkind. Those words had never left my thoughts, along with something Roberto had said to me the previous year right before Liesel agreed to be changed- that you'd be a fool to pass up a chance to stay with someone you really love. I was not unkind and I was definitely no fool.

While Claudine and I were just hanging out the day I was going to be turned, Claude called and said he'd see me in a few centuries, then chuckled and said that I would be the only vampire for whom he'd ever consider taking that silver colloid stuff. He made joking reference to the fact that being turned would be hard on me, since he'd seem more attractive than ever. He was so hard to take. Niall couldn't come that day, but Claudine said that he would come to see me when I had turned. I wondered about whether he really would. But she seemed very sure. She said after he had checked things out that she'd meet me and we'd go shopping and things just like before. She didn't like coming to the New Orleans compound at night for obvious reasons but she said she'd meet me and go places with me as soon as things were safe. It left me feeling hopeful.

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Eric and I made love that last time with me as a warm human and I tried to relax and not think about what was coming after but it just was impossible. I was nervous and could barely relax. In the candlelight, his eyes glowed as he asked me if I was ready. I nodded and he seated himself behind me and brushed my hair away from my neck. He crossed my arms across my waist, and then pinned his arms over mine. While my heart pounded so strongly that I was surprised I couldn't hear it echoing through the room, Eric said quietly,

"It's natural to struggle at the very end. So I'm going to hold you very tightly, alright? It's going to be fine. Try to think of that when you're panicking. Because you're _going_ to panic at some point. But you're safe and everything will be fine. Just trust me that it's going to be fine."

I nodded, with my heart still pounding, and closed my eyes.

"You're really _sure,_ Sookie?"

I nodded again, eyes still closed.

And then he somehow managed to raise me slightly, even though I was still pinned by his arms, and he latched onto my neck. I gasped but not exactly in pain. The sensation was different from other times, not just in the length of his drawing on my blood, but something in the manner of it. It was like there was magic in his very intent. Even though he was drawing my blood, his hands caressed my sides, as if trying to soothe me. It seemed to go on and on, of course much longer than anything I'd ever experienced and I finally began to feel very weak, my heart slowing, my brain panicking, just as Eric had predicted. I began to struggle and cry out, and tears streamed down my face, but still he went on. I tried to remember what he said, that I had to just trust him. Trust him… But it was hard. It began to really hurt, and finally near the end I was so lightheaded, almost feeling the way you feel when you have a really high fever and nothing makes sense. It was quickly beyond delirium. Then he was murmuring something to me, his face above mine, with his bleeding wrist, pressed to my mouth. _Drink,_ I thought he said. _Drink._ He loved me, I would sleep. _Sleep_…. His voice echoed in my head. I had never felt so weak in my entire life. My heart seemed so… loud, but… so… slow. Then still slower… and… slower… And then, finally, I was… gone.

**

* * *

  
**

He gently cleaned the area at her neck and stared down at her. It had been more than a hundred and fifty years since he had turned someone. It was absurdly unsettling to look at her there and to think she was dead. So beautiful, yet so soft and still. He would miss her warmth, but would gain her eternal companionship. He smiled while looking down at her. Perhaps she would be ever so slightly more manageable this way, though he had every intention of being judicious. He had enjoyed her feistiness so much in life and felt no need to change her in death. He was supremely happy. It had taken _years_. He had been confident that he could convince her and he finally had. And there had been so little opposition from her family. The Fae part, that is. Jason had told him off after receiving her letter, but there was not any reason to bother her with anything Jason had to say to him. Anyway, with his third marriage falling apart, Sookie was rather impatient with Jason these days and not likely to put much store into his opposition.

He lifted her and put her nightgown over her head and worked it over her arms, then shifted her position in the bed so that she was prone and he could wrap her in the sheets and comforter. He stroked her hair and her cheek. She would awaken in three days time ravenous and cold. He settled down next to her in the bed with his book, awaiting the dawn.

About ten minutes before dawn, he heard a knocking on the panel covering the metal door that separated the secure room from the regular bedroom area. He rose and queried who was there through the communication panel, only to find it was Pam. He opened the door, to which even she did not have access, and let her come in. Dressed in a nightgown and robe, she nodded deferentially and then walked over to the bed and looked at her. She sat down and took her hand, her eyes filling with tears that spilled over.

"I just can't believe it." She leaned over and took her cold, stiffening hand, her pink tears splashing down onto the sheets and comforter. She turned to Eric and said,

"I still worry Eric. She was so… unique. I really hope it will be okay. I feel unsettled somehow."

"You've got to be kidding. She'll be fine, Pam. To the very last she agreed. Her choice."

She stood up and kissed her friend's cheek, and then placed her arm carefully back at her side under the comforter. She nodded to him and went back out. After sealing the door, he got back into the bed and with a gentle glance toward his dead lover and wife, took up his book to read a little longer.

He smiled as he read.


	3. Chapter 3

**III.**

I felt as if I was surfacing from being trapped underwater. I couldn't breathe exactly, but I gasped as if I wanted to do so. I opened my eyes and gasped again as I took in the familiar room in which I had spent more than eight years of my recent life. It looked so different through my new eyes. It was kind of like an infrared photography exhibit that I had seen in a French Quarter gallery a month before. Things that were normally light were so intense, things that were dark were visible clearly and things that were sort of alive, like the flowers on the nightstand, were almost glowing with an aura of life. And the colors… they were all so intense and saturated, even in the darkened room. I was acutely aware of the scents around me. It was all so strong it was as if I had never smelled anything before in my entire life. I smelled what I knew to be Eric, even though he was not in the room, and a trace of something that I recognized as Pam, even though she had rarely ever been in this room. I smelled the flowers, which were overwhelmingly sweet, and the scent of their rotting stems in the water, which was acrid. I lay there in the bed and waited for the overwhelming hunger, that was supposed to consume a new vampire, with dread. And I felt… nothing.

I was different, for certain. All of my senses told me that. I ran my tongue my teeth and felt the sharp fangs dipping down slightly where my lateral incisors and canine teeth had been. I was a vampire. But I just didn't feel the rage of hunger that everyone had described to me. I waited, but after several minutes, I sat upright. Everything about me felt different. From my sense of balance, to my hearing, sense of smell and my eyesight. And the bond, my bond with Eric, felt different as well. It was, if even possible, somehow stronger. It was like a current of electricity flowed through it. I had to try to steady my mind to filter or mute it because it felt _loud_. It was as if I had to imagine one of those dimmer switches on a lamp that lets you make turn something down so it's not too bright. Because that bond felt like the biggest brightest thing in the room to me. I tried turning it down in my mind until it was more tolerable. Even so, it kind of made my head ache a bit. Once I'd grown slightly more accustomed to the sensations, over all of about fifteen minutes, I decided to get up.

I stood up and looked for my robe. Even the sensation of fabric felt different on my skin and I shivered as I slipped it on. Everything was _so_ intense. After putting on my robe, I opened the secure door, and found Eric and Pam about to enter. They looked at me as if puzzled. Eric was holding an empty glass and a bag of blood with an American Red Cross label on it. They came inside and the door closed behind them.

I couldn't exactly find my voice, but almost as if over a loudspeaker, I heard their voices.

_How can she be up a day early and so calm? So quiet, no thrashing… This is _so_ odd…_ said Pam. _She definitely needs the blood though, she's white as marble… She hardly even acts hungry. But she's so steady on her feet… _

_She's risen after less than seventy-two hours… that seems pretty early_, said Eric_. She looks… well... She looks…? She doesn't look as hungry as she should. This is odd. She is looking at the bag, but there's no strong drive toward it. Very odd. She has to smell it. She looks so controlled. She feels so odd through the bond… it's almost as if it's attenuated. Maybe she is just weak…? Could she shut it down herself, mentally? She looks so… controlled. Why isn't she acting hungry?_

It was only after a few seconds that I realized that they weren't actually speaking at all. I was hearing their _thoughts_. As clearly as I'd hear any human's. As clearly as I heard my own thoughts. Eric pulled me firmly back to the bed. I gasped at his touch. His touch was electrifying. Even though it seemed as if he was just guiding me with his hand, his touch made me flinch. He didn't act as if he noticed anything out of the ordinary with that, so maybe it was completely normal? He scored open the bag with his thumb nail and then emptied the contents into the glass, which was very large.

"Drink, Sookie. Drink it all," he said softly. He pressed the glass into my hands.

His voice resonated oddly in my head. It was almost as if it was on the same wavelength as my thoughts and it made me feel slightly dizzy again. I shifted my mind away from his voice. I was agitated by the sensory overload. I put down the glass and started to stand up again. They both looked at me _really _oddly then. Finally, I realized that I probably really was hungry. I picked up the glass and drank. It was like ambrosia. It tasted that good. I drank the entire glass in one long steady drink and then put the glass down. I looked at them and again heard their thoughts but now that this was more like it, much better.

Finally, finding my voice, I said, "I want to get dressed. I want to come out."

Eric looked at me cautiously and said, "You should have more. At least five or six more. Do you want it here, or the kitchen? Dining room?"

I looked up at him and heard him wondering _What is going on? She should be hungrier. She should be completely ravenous. She's totally calm. I should have felt her waking sooner. She's been up for a while obviously. I don't know why I didn't realize it right away. I only felt her stirring as if she hadn't changed at all? The bond is almost as it was before. This just doesn't make sense. Look at her- the drive to feed, that urge, it's like it just isn't there. What's _wrong_ with her?_

"I just want to go out of the room, to get dressed and come out. I'm fine. Really. I just need to move. I'll have it in the kitchen. I'm really fine, Eric."

He stiffened slightly, which now seemed like a huge movement to my hyperacute senses. _Sookie?_

I glanced up at him. "_What_?" I was almost annoyed. His internal voice was so loud.

_So you can hear everything, yes?_

I hestitated to reply. Pam was just taking in the silent dynamic back and forth. Their thoughts and their actual voices just made my head ache more. Only two voices but it was like cacophony in my head. I put my hand to my temple and rubbed. _So loud_... They're _so_ loud, I thought to myself.

"Sookie, I'll help you get dressed," Pam said gently. She reached out to touch me but I winced before she even laid a hand on me.

"Not so fast… What do you really feel, Sookie?" said Eric cautiously.

"_Everything_. I feel almost as if I'm on overload with all my senses. It all hurts. I need to get it to tone down. And yes I hear you both. It's like you're using a bullhorn it's so loud."

"But the hunger? You should feel ravenous, Sookie," he said looking down at me with narrow eyes.

"I will drink more if you give me more. I felt hungry when I started to drink. Maybe… I'm too distracted with everything else. It's like everything is so different- my vision, hearing, sense of smell, I'm hypersensitive even to your touch. It's a lot to process. I just feel like I'm on overload. I want everything to just be toned down. I'm not really hungry but I'll drink it you want me to."

_She'll drink it _if I want her to_? What the fuck? I need to call Stan. I need to talk to him to find out if something like this happened with him. Was he hungry I wonder? Why would being a telepath make you turn without appetite, though? It can't be that. And she hears us so she's not like Stan. No, if she has no strong urge to feed there's something very wrong. How could this happen? I never seen this before. How could this happen?_

I put my both hands to my temples and pressed. My head was just ringing with the sound of his thoughts and it hurt behind my eyes. His internal voice was so loud and strong and the whole bond felt like this ache in my mind. It was like a physical thing, our bond, crowded into too small a space. I just needed more space and some quiet.

I looked up at him and said, "I'm not like you. I wasn't like you to begin with. I'll be fine. I'm just not… like you."

Eric and Pam looked at me wide-eyed. I walked past them and put my number into the keypad and let it scan my palm. I exited the secure room and went to dress. I could tell they were very puzzled and kind of worried. But I was too busy just trying to adapt to really pay much attention to them at that moment. I slipped off the robe and nightgown and put the nightgown in the dirty laundry basket and sighed. Naked felt so good. Nothing touching me. It was bliss. What a drag that it wasn't an option. I put panties on and immediately felt as if I was itchy in my own skin. As I tried to hook my bra, Pam, who had been standing watching me change, moved to me and helped. She stroked my back gently down to the small of my back and I felt the almost electric charge and turned on her with my eyes wide and felt my new fangs descend slightly. It was almost a sexual feeling I got from her. I pulled back. She was my friend, like a sister to me. What is this sexual thing from her, after all this time, I thought to myself? Maybe I was mistaken? Was it _me_? I couldn't even tell. I was totally confused. Maybe it was really me because she was looking more like she was concerned about me. Well then _what _is wrong with me, I asked myself?

_Well she's acting normal in that sense, starting to snarl if she gets startled… Sookie, I didn't mean to startle you. Can you hear me in your mind?_

She reached out to me. I pulled further back from her reach and looked at her. She wasn't as loud a thinker as Eric was, but still…

"Sookie, just relax, okay? Everything is fine. Just get dressed and we'll go to the kitchen and you can sit and have lots of delicious blood. We got you real blood from the Red Cross Blood Bank. Fresh. All different types. You don't even have to bite anyone. You're going to be _so_ spoiled." She spoke quietly, almost in a whisper. I guess she got what I'd said about hypersensitivity.

I pulled on some soft black sweatpants, a black boatneck pima cotton t-shirt and my black slip-on Keds with the little bows. The clothes felt awful. My feet stung with the contact of the shoes. I gritted my teeth. I went into the bathroom and brushed my hair. Even brushing my hair stung as the brush contacted my scalp. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked very, very pale, and was even slightly ashen. I leaned forward to look at myself more closely. It was all so bizarre. The lights bothered my eyes. I reached over and turned them off but could still see myself clearly, pale and luminous, in the mirror.

"You'll look better as soon as you've had more to drink, okay? Let's go." Pam held out her hand to me. I stared at it and shook my head, moving past her.

"Where's Eric?" I asked cautiously. I couldn't smell him nearby anymore. He had left the room. His thought signature wasn't far away though… I felt him and could almost hear him in my head. He was talking, as if on the phone or something. Even that was dizzying. I was feeling a bit shaky on my feet.

"He went to make a call. Let's go to the kitchen, come on, Sookie." She firmly took my hand and I had to stop myself from hissing at her. I pulled my hand away and that was even more painful.

"He's calling Stan?" I asked. I swear I could almost hear him conversing.

She nodded.

"Pam, I'm not like Stan. I'm not like any of you, because I started out differently. You were all human. I wasn't totally human. Plus, I can still hear you. Clearly I turned out differently from Stan. Stan can't explain _me_."

I knew the fact that I hadn't been fully human was the reason I was acting differently from what they had expected but I couldn't say why. Vampire seemed to trump so many other things but I hadn't ever seen anyone who was Fae or part-Fae who was a vampire. Maybe there were problems when you turned someone with fae blood? But it was such a small amount, really. Only an eighth. Claudine, Claude and Niall knew what I was planning to do. And none of them had mentioned any potential for trouble. Maybe they didn't know of any part-Fae people who been turned?

Pam carefully led me down to the kitchen. She took out some bags of blood and heated one for 15 seconds in the microwave. She opened the bag and put it in a wine glass for me. I drank it down obediently. I felt Emily coming into the kitchen, recognized her scent, heard her thought signature approaching. I turned to the door. She looked surprised to see me.

_Wow, she's out a whole night early. She looks good and she's not acting scary and wild or anything like that. She doesn't even smell very predatory… But she does smell like one of them. Slightly different from Eric and Pam, though. Her eyes look so odd... They don't have that glow that theirs do. They almost sparkle… They're so… odd… _"Hi Sookie. I heard the microwave. How are you?"

Okay, I thought vaguely to myself, vampires and Weres. I can read vampires and Weres. Boy, is Emily loud, too. Ugh. So chipper.

"I'm fine Em. How about you? What's odd about my eyes? I don't get it? What's odd?"

She blanched. I shifted my gaze to meet hers and suddenly felt like I was tunneling into her mind. It was like a roller coaster ride, but so smooth and so fast. Images flew by me in my mind. Edwin, her parents, boyfriends, job, school, pets. It was dizzying. When I focused again, I found her staring at me, completely transfixed.

Pam touched my arm gently, making me jump, and chuckled, "Sookie, that's wondrous, but we won't be able to keep any staff if you start glamouring them like that. Let her go." She turned to me and shook my arm. "Sookie, release her."

This time, with the rougher touch, I couldn't help myself and I hissed at her and felt my fangs run down. I pulled my arm away from Pam and she chortled as if amused at seeing me so aggressive with her. My arm _stung_. I felt like I'd been stung by a jellyfish or something. I almost expected to look down and see marks where her fingers had touched me. But there was nothing.

I turned back to Emily, feeling puzzled by something I didn't even realize I was doing. I'd glamoured her? This upset me. It made me feel like I was out of control. So I pulled my mind way back from her, and stopped staring at her. I tried to actively think about releasing my mind from hers. I drew everything back into me, even though I felt shaky and overloaded.

"Emily? Emily Burke? What was odd about my eyes?" I asked without looking at her.

She snapped out of it and seemed as if she felt that something out of the ordinary had happened but she couldn't put her finger on it. She looked at me again and said,

"No, you look fine. Your eyes just sparkle, that's all. Like bright flecks of copper that weren't there before. Check it out in the mirror. You know, I'm going back to my room. I feel really tired all of the sudden."

"Thanks, Em. I'll see you… later." I wouldn't be seeing her in the morning again. Ever. It seemed odd to know that was definitely true.

Pam opened another bag and made me drink another glass while thinking that it was really great that I was so good at glamouring. Glamouring even a Were my first night awake. Evidently they were harder to glamour? Who knew? But I didn't think I'd consciously done anything, other than get sucked into reading her so easily. It was unsettling that I had let it get out of control. Poor Em, I thought to myself. Then, I thought about the fact that all the sounds in the kitchen could drive me nuts. All the electric equipment, the big dishwasher running… Well at least Pam's internal voice was less potent in my head than Eric's, which sounded rock band soundstage loud. She seemed to be making an effort to think and speak softly. She made me finish the third pint of blood. My head still ached. She wanted me to have more but I said I'd have more later.

I rose and rinsed out the glass in the sink, then washed it with a soapy sponge and rinsed it further, setting it in the drainer. Even the water felt weird on my skin. I had to say that so far, I wasn't liking this at all.

"Pam, I want to go to my office and check my email, okay?" I just wanted to do something quiet and away from any one else's thoughts for a bit.

I looked at the open door out onto the courtyard, while Pam was distracted for a moment on her PDA. My office… I just seemed to have crossed courtyard into the other side of the compound almost instantly. It was a bizarre sensation. There I was in my office. But the odd thing was, I didn't seem to remember how I got there. I mean, I'd looked across the courtyard to the business side of the compound but I didn't have any recollection of covering the distance. It was _very_ disorienting. Furthermore, I could hear people talking out in the hall and I didn't really exactly remember passing them to open my door. I shook my head. Probably I was still just a few pints too short of what I needed and Eric and Pam were right. I'd check my email and then have more blood when I was done.

I waited for my computer to come out of sleep mode. All the high-pitched frequencies were a bit painful to my ears. But still, it was better than voices. I let the emails collect in my Inbox. It was kind of cool that I could sit there in the dark with only the illumination, which I had already dimmed to about 50% of what it had been, of my Mac and see perfectly well for typing or even reading some of the paperwork on my desk. Suddenly, while sitting there and reading a brief email from a Were in Oklahoma, I had the oddest sensation. It was like Eric was speaking, but in some weird slithery voice in my head. I almost thought he said my name. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. My attention was sort of split between the email however, and whatever the weirdness was. The email won. My mind actually felt much clearer, and more like myself, when reading through the email and planning my reply. No voices, no drinking while I was talked to and encouraged like some sick child. It was really simple and familiar, just reading. The Were was having problems with a business arrangement with a local Sheriff. The Sheriff was making the Were's life difficult by demanding the equivalent of protection money. The Were was writing from a commercial email address that looked like a car dealership. Well, asking for protecton money or services was extortion and it's illegal in the Alliance states both according to state laws and according to Alliance laws. I felt sharper just reading his letter and drawing conclusions. I felt more like 'me' and that made me comfortable_._ The problem was, I said to myself, it might be happening in the Sheriff's _name_ and not with the Sheriff's knowledge. I knew all the Sheriffs in Oklahoma and it just didn't seem likely to me that a Sheriff who'd been in place since the inception of the Alliance would be so foolish and take such risks. The other problem was that the investigation needed to be handled deftly so the Were didn't end up getting killed to silence his complaints. I was going to have to notify Cameron, the King of Oklahoma that I was opening a formal investigation and needed official decrees of protection for the Were and his people while I investigated. I was just drafting the email when I heard someone approaching my office door and the sound of keys at the door. I sort of froze. Who was it? They weren't even knocking. Who else had a key to my office?

The office door whipped open and Eric filled the doorway. I could sense Pam behind him. His thoughts seemed frustrated and… angry. I couldn't quite get a fix on him. But yeah, he was angry.

"What are you doing?" Eric said, in a tone of voice that sounded like he was seriously _not_ happy.

I looked up at him puzzled. "I'm checking my email."

"Sookie, I didn't even see you leave. I got worried," Pam said, pushing through the doorway. She looked completely baffled.

"But I told you I was going to my office to check my email, Pam. I told you in the kitchen, remember?"

She looked at me and nodded but looked troubled. "You told me but when I turned back you were gone."

"Well, I was gone because I went to check my email, silly." I made a face at her. My headache was back.

She looked very unconvinced. In the meantime, Eric stood there just looking at me.

"What?" I asked, him puzzled.

"The office was locked and you don't have your keys with you." Eric said suspiciously. He held up my keychain.

I kind of froze for a minute, looking off in space. I really didn't remember unlocking the door or even opening the door. Had the door been unlocked? Actually, I definitely didn't remember coming inside and locking the door behind me either. Frankly, I really didn't remember coming over here at all. I remembered just being there, in the kitchen doorway to the courtyard and then being here, at my desk. I was thoroughly confused.

"Well, I don't know… I wanted to check my email, and I got here and started doing just that."

"I called to you," Eric said, looking very serious. "I called to you and you did not respond."

I frowned, thinking for a moment. That was 'the call'? That sort of slithery voice, hair standing on end thing was 'the call'? I looked up at Eric and tipped my head at an angle, shaking it slightly.

"I felt… something, but I guess I didn't know what it was. I was in the middle of reading an email and just got distracted, I guess."

Pam looked at me wide-eyed and positively openmouthed.

Eric looked at me with eyes that glowed. "You got _distracted_? When I call to you, you are supposed to come to me. Immediately."

"Well, in future I'll make the effort, okay? Geez Louise, Eric, I'm like what, one day old? How was I even supposed to know what it felt like? And my head is just killing me from all the sound and light. I was trying to tune _everything_ out. That's why I came over here. To just have some peace."

He loomed over me and pulled me up from the chair by my upper arm.

_What is going on with her? How did she even get in here? She left feeding to do email? What the fuck is going on?_

I groaned. His fangs were partially bared and his thoughts impacted my mind painfully. He was getting so angry. And his grip on my arm was so painful. It felt like he'd connected me to an electrical outlet or something. And his strong thoughts rang in my head painfully. It was _all _painful.

"You're hurting me. Let go. You're _hurting_ me."

He didn't let go. Then suddenly I felt that slithery voice again in my head, much stronger. That hurt, too, but much more than his touch. I closed my eyes tightly. I gasped.

_Look at me! _

I opened my eyes and looked up at him.

_You listen to me, right now. When I call, you _come_, do you understand? Do you? It's important. It isn't a game. How the hell did you get in here? Think. How?_

I felt as if he was planting his thoughts in my head, searing them into me, and simultaneously trying to pull my thoughts out. As badly as his grip on my arm hurt, that voice in my head was a thousand times worse. My hand flew to my temple and I recoiled from him but his hold on my arm was too tight to pull away. The energy that carried his voice felt like it was saturated with venom, burning me. I could hardly catch my breath to say,

"Why are you doing this? Let go of me… You're _hurting_ me… That _voice_." I twisted trying to get away from him.

Suddenly, Pam moved toward Eric with her eyes wide with alarm, and said "Eric, stop. Stop! You need to stop…" but he pushed her back into the wall and didn't let go of me.

He didn't stop. And suddenly it seemed as if the person who stared down at me in those seconds bore only a faint resemblance to the man I loved. I felt this admixture of anger and even hatred from him. The pain of his searing into my mind, and the feelings he engendered in doing so, reminded me of Dieter, all those years ago. Dieter, who wanted to control me, to _break_ me. I felt a surge of absolutely uncontrollable panic. I had to get away. Suddenly, with all out fear welling in my heart about what I'd chosen to do, I wanted nothing more than to go home. I wanted to go back home, to feel safe. I wanted it more than anything.

And in an instant, I was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**IV.**

Not being able to cross the entryway of my own house really was a problem. All the wards were now mostly specific to Amelia and Tray and their two kids. I could pass before but now I was vampire and they lived there, so I guessed I'd have to be invited in and then reclaim the house and be incorporated into the wards as an allowed vampire. Nonetheless, the fact that I was even worrying about this ludicrous detail, instead of being concerned about _why I was now on the front porch of the Stackhouse home in Bon Temps_, was a clear indication of exactly how low on fuel my brain was. Talk about scrambled priorities.

It was after midnight. I wasn't sure exactly what time it was. Probably too late to ring the doorbell.

Now I really was getting hungry. The only thing I could think of doing was walking across the graveyard and seeing if Bill was home and had any True Blood. So that was what I did.

When I stepped, silently enough, onto the porch of the Compton home, Bill appeared instantly and turned me toward him. He looked stunned that it was me. Bill knew I was going to be turned but clearly he was puzzled as to why I was here in Bon Temps.

"Sookie? What are you doing here?"

"Do you have a few True Bloods I could have?"

His eyes widened. "What's going on?"

"I'm not totally sure. But I'm really getting kind of hungry."

He looked at me like I _was _a weird one, just as they had, I noted to myself. I was pretty calm I guess. It wasn't as if the hunger was so overwhelming. But I could definitely eat or more accurately _drink_.

He walked me around the veranda and in through the side door and the sitting room, then off to the tiny kitchen. He took two bottles out of the refrigerator and heated them in the microwave then handed me one. He clinked my bottle. We sat down in the sitting room and I rook my first swig of True Blood.

It was _horrible_. Horrible, horrible stuff. If my Grandfather ever spoke to me again, I had to talk to him about how _bad _this stuff tasted compared to real blood.

Bill chuckled when he saw my face but then became serious again.

"Sookie, what happened. I don't understand. Why are you _here_? You were in New Orleans, right? When did you get here? And… how? I didn't hear a vehicle?"

"I think I'm here because I wanted to be here. I wanted to go home. That's all I can tell you." I was so confused myself at this point that I could hardly even think straight.

"We need to call Eric."

"No!" I said emphatically and sitting up straight. I wasn't ready to start dealing with my own personal Dieter again so soon.

"Well, I don't know what's going on, but I'm calling Eric because there is something very odd going on here, Sookie." He looked at me through narrow eyes like he almost didn't trust it was really me. I rose to leave and suddenly he reached out super fast and grabbed my forearm. "Oh, no you don't," he said sharply.

His touch was painful and I tried to yank my arm away. As I pulled back his fingernails scored my forearm deeply enough to make it bleed. He relaxed his hold when he saw what he'd done and I pulled my arm back, gasping at him and looking at him wide-eyed. The wound was already healing but it had _really_ hurt. I got blood on my shirt and some dropped onto his floor. What was _wrong_ with them? I asked myself. None of them would have treated me this way before, I thought to myself. They're all so rough and mean.

He took out his phone and hit one of his speed dial numbers. He looked very shaken. "Eric? Do you know that Sookie is here in Bon Temps?"

I should have gone to Sam's, I thought. I should have just walked into town and gone to Sam's house. I wouldn't attack anyone even if I was working up an appetite. Sam would have just gotten me some True Blood from the bar. Sam will treat me like a friend, I thought to myself_._ What I couldn't do was stay here. And in an instant while Bill turned away, I was gone. The last thing I heard of his voice was the word '_teleported_?' Then I understood.

I sat outside on a table at Merlotte's and listened to the crickets and an owl hooting up in the tree.

I had heard of a vampire that could teleport. There was a vampire in Washington State that could do it, head of a well-known nest near Seattle. It was considered a real rarity. I only knew of the guy because Eric let me look through the database in his office for my work as a liaison. It was something of an open secret that he let me do research in the database. But that's how I knew about the Washington nest and the vampire, whose name was Kieran. Then I wondered whether I could teleport because of my fae blood. Basically, the Fae were doing teleportation when they popped from one place to another. This Kieran person was Irish. Had he been Fae or part-Fae? Perhaps my eighth fae blood combined with 1100 year old vampire sire blood could create enough magic to make me pop? Why was I even asking myself _that _stupid question? Wasn't the answer already obvious? Less than an hour ago I was in New Orleans and now I'm in Bon Temps, having gone to two different locations here on top of it. Obviously, the answer to that stupid question is _yes_, I said to myself. Now I was annoyed with myself for thinking stupid irrelevant thoughts. I should stay focused. The focus points were _not_ promising, however. My change had gone very _obviously_ wrong. I wasn't a ravenously hungry, easily controlled new vampire. I was not quite right. However, even if I was low on fuel, I could evidently travel pretty much where I pleased. But the moving around seemed to really kick up my appetite a bit. I wished I'd kept that bottle from Bill's even if it tasted horrid.

Suddenly I became aware of Bill's scent and thought signature nearby. He'd tracked me, or figured I was likely to go to Merlotte's or to Sam's place. As he started to round the corner to the patio tables, I struggled to think where I could be safe. Somewhere I could be alone, where they weren't likely to look. As Bill seemed to rapidly cruise toward me I closed my eyes and thought of Red Ditch and Hunter. I could see it in my mind's eye, and then… I simply vanished.

**

* * *

  
**

It is a measure of Hunter's trusting nature that when I knocked on his window at 2 am, he took in the situation and opened the window anyway. He knew I was going to be turned because I'd told him about the plan. Since his mother, my cousin Hadley, had left Hunter and his father Remy when he was a baby, and then gone over, I didn't want there to be any surprises or any worries that somehow I'd fall out of his life, too. Hunter was in the midst of the familiar adolescent telepath crisis- hearing all this stuff in everybody's minds that you really, really don't want to hear. Social stuff. Sexual stuff. Mean stuff. I would have thought that it was easier for a boy, but really, since society demands that men act so tough, it wasn't any easier. Hunter was really attached to me for emotional support and understanding that his parents, Remy and Kristen, just couldn't give him. Because they really didn't understand. And Hunter was such a fine person. The kind that wouldn't skim answers off another student because he hadn't studied enough for his geography test. Or read a girl's mind so he could falsely try to suck up to her by talking about only what she likes. He was also the kind of kid who, when his newly vampire 'Aunt' tapped on the window at 2 am, would talk to her cautiously and then… let her in.

He let me sleep in his walk-in closet, covered in his comforter. He packed dirty clothes around any cracks under the door and hung a pair of jeans on the hinges, just to be sure. He was sure Remy and Kristen wouldn't come in his room and wouldn't think anything of stuff on the floor if they did. I could see his point. He was 13 and his room showed it.

"I'll let you go back to sleep. I'll leave at sunset," I told him. I was positively starved but figured that it could wait. Hunter however, seemed almost to sense it in my manner. But he didn't act scared of me. I was grateful for that, but realized with any other vampire, it was an attitude that I should discourage him from having. Being so trusting could get him killed.

"I'll get you some of that blood stuff for when you wake up. And you don't have to go. I could ask my dad and Kristen if you need to stay, or we don't even have to tell them."

"I think it's better for me to leave, Hunter. You're parents aren't going to be thrilled that you have a vampire in your closet, even if it's me. By sunset tomorrow, I'll have a plan, okay? You should just go back to sleep, sweetie."

The following evening, when I woke, I did the normal thing anyone does when they're in serious trouble and their parents are no longer available. I called my Grandfather from Hunter's cell phone. I didn't even want to chance causing problems for Claudine or Claude. Instead of it going to the answering service, Niall answered the call on the second ring.

"Where are you, child?" he said in a soft voice. Obviously, he already knew something had gone wrong.

I countered with "Who will you tell?"

He was silent for a moment as if taking in the broader implications of my question.

"What happened, Sookie? Are you alright?"

I took another sip of my second bottle of True Blood O negative and shook my head to myself. No, I was definitely _not_ alright. But I didn't want to start talking badly of Eric in front of Hunter. I didn't want to scare Hunter. And part of me reflexively also didn't want to speak badly of Eric to Niall, either. Gosh only knows what he could do to Eric if he thought Eric had hurt me with the whole sire thing, I thought to myself. Eric liked to think he was powerful enough to fight the Fae, but really eight years of liaison work and knowing my Grandfather a bit better, I would be _very_ worried, no matter how upset I was with Eric, that my Grandfather could harm him. Eric could fight fairies, sure. But Niall had the service of many creatures that were much, much nastier than fairies. Really, I didn't like people seeking retribution on my account.

I settled for saying, "I can't talk freely right now."

"I need to know what happened. Where are you?" I suddenly felt the locket on my chest warm and it was as if I smelled the magic emanating from it. Magic really had a _scent_?

"You know, Grandfather, this True Blood stuff is really _awful_ tasting. I'm amazed anyone can mainstream if this is the solution. You have to do something to improve it. It's horrid."

He sighed softly on the other end of the line. "Well, you still _sound_ like yourself, Sookie. You are with Hunter?"

"Yes," I said cautiously. For now, I thought.

"We will have to explain things to him. I assume he cannot be glamoured?"

"I don't know and I wouldn't do that to find out…"

"I will arrive shortly." He hung up.

I turned to Hunter and thought about what to say. I guess it was about time he knew a bit about the Stackhouse family history, at a minimum. This would be the extremely abridged version.

"Hunter, someone from our family that you don't exactly know about is going to come. Have you seen fairies on TV? Those really beautiful people? Like in the movies and stuff?"

He nodded, looking serious and pale, his freckles standing out more obviously. His dark brown eyes were locked on mine.

"Okay, well, we have some Fae blood. I do, Jason does and your mom did. So you have some, too."

"Is that where it came from? The mind reading, telepathy stuff?" he asked wide-eyed.

"No, sweetie. That's still a mystery. But this is a secret thing, okay? Just like being a telepath. You can't tell anyone at all about it. You'll find out more later on, I'm sure."

When Niall arrived, to my dismay, _he _glamoured Hunter so that we could talk. I wasn't too thrilled looking at Hunter frozen in some sort of fixed stasis, eyes staring blankly at where Niall had arrived. Niall glanced in dismay around at Hunter's room, which was something of a pigsty. Then I could see him surreptitiously checking out Hunter's neck and wrists to see if I'd fed on him. That just made me lose it. I openly expressed my disgust that he could think that _I_ would feed on a child. I pointed out that it was disgusting and furthermore, illegal. Meanwhile, he kept to the other side of the room, while I rapidly went through the four remaining bottles of TrueBlood that Hunter had given me. Really, I had absolutely no inclination to go after Niall at all. Even though after a while I could tell that he was deliberately letting me catch his scent as if to see what I'd do. It was one of those things you can say smells good but you don't _have_ to eat it. Like popcorn or grilled onions. He seemed to be studying me carefully while we talked. I told him the simple events that led to my being here with Hunter, including just a bit about Eric's manner with me. I said that I guessed Eric was angry with me but didn't get into the details. I didn't want to mention the being like Dieter part because even years later, Niall still felt bad about it, according to Claudine. To sum it up, I said I was a very messed up version of a vampire because I wasn't hungry enough and didn't do as I was told. From the way his eyes sparkled when I said it, I think Niall would have laughed if things weren't so serious. Finally, when I was done talking, he said,

"Well, Eric called me. Clearly things did not go as planned. They are worried about where you are. He is very upset, Sookie," he said softly.

"Eric's upset? _He's_ upset? Well, I gave up my _life_. You know, this is just stupid. I don't even wake up hungry. I'm clearly defective. This whole thing was a huge mistake." I had already been thinking seriously dark, or should I say, light as in sunlight, thoughts earlier in the evening.

Niall suddenly threw some sort of magic at me that held me fast, as if I was caught in an invisible net. It smelled like odd, almost like cinnamon but burnt. He drew close to me, looming over me. He was almost as tall as Eric and now, in spite of the fact that I had been so used to him when I was a human, I felt more fearful of him. Part of me felt that was irrational, but looking at him up close made me frightened. The glamour on his appearance was not as complete to my eyes anymore. He was fierce and powerful. He glowed brightly and his eyes sparked almost angrily as he looked down at me.

"Give it time to settle down, Sookie. You're upset. You need to take the time to adjust. That is all."

I looked askance at him. Settle down _how_? And _where_? Was he suggesting that I go home, to where I was being rather painfully roughed up for failing to toe the line?

"I'm _not_ going back there, Grandfather, and if you or anyone tries to make me, I will take off and you won't find me. And if I'm not happy with my quality of 'existence' that is my business and no one else's."

Niall's eyes widened at the last comment although the whole thing seemed to bother him. From my perspective, teleportation kind of limited the ability of someone to tell me where I should be. I could park myself right out in Gran's garden at dawn if I wanted. And frankly I was seriously thinking about it.

"I think you should talk to Eric, Sookie. He is very worried about you."

"Oh, really… Well, I'm just _touched_," I said snidely. He certainly hadn't been too worried when he was hurting me the previous night, now had he?

"What is it that has you so upset that you will not even speak with Eric?"

What could I tell him? That I really didn't like someone forcing their way into my head, trying to control me? I suppose I could count that as my fault for not realizing that might be a bit of a problem _before_ agreeing to be turned… That Eric being so rough inside my head felt no different from what happened eight years ago when Dieter pretty much mauled my mind? That I told him he was hurting me and he didn't stop? That it was rather upsetting to think that someone who I loved was treating me that way and I simply wouldn't stand for it? Well, I was not telling him any of those things because I had no idea what he'd do in response.

"I can't explain it to you. But I'm not going back. At least not right now."

"Child, I don't know what happened but I do know that Eric very much wants you to return home. It doesn't seem it would be safe for you to be on your own at present. Especially if you haven't turned in the expected way. Especially if you are thinking the way you seem to be. You should go back to him, and to your friend. They will help you."

He was going to tell them where I was. I was absolutely sure that he was going to tell them. I could even read it from his mind a bit, and see his wondering if he could keep me restrained this way long enough to get me to Eric. He was trying to formulate a plan. I was acutely aware of the fact that the more I focused on him, I could clearly read some of his thoughts in the smooth pattern that was the fae mind. His internal voice was nowhere near like that of Eric or Pam's. It was less visceral and more visual. He was figuring out how to get me back to Eric, back _home_. But what was important was that I didn't _want_ to go back. I thought wildly that I had to get away. I was afraid to go back home. 'Home' had hurt me. I didn't trust Eric. I was… afraid of Eric.

I glanced away from my grandfather and focused on the poster on Hunter's wall. The bonds that he had wrapped around me burned me as I struggled to depart, leaving a web of crisscross cuts all over me that hurt me so badly I cried out. But I got away. And they healed within a few hours.


	5. Chapter 5

**V.**

Banff, Alberta… The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel was really beautiful. It was as pretty as a picture. Specifically, the picture in the poster on Hunter's wall. But there was no way I could stay there. Hotels were definitely out. My newfound resistance to the cold was helpful on this chilly autumn night in the Canadian Rockies. I was far north, where there would be more darkness in the autumn. If I needed to take time to sort out what I wanted to do, Banff appeared to be a fortuitous option. I was outside of the US network of vampires where I was well-known and highly recognizable. Canada had liberal laws for vampires. I was in a tourist town where I could work if I needed to do so. I could just get a job waiting tables. I certainly had a ton of experience. I could make discreet inquiries about the local Sheriff, to check in. Perhaps I could even use an assumed name. I thought about using Hadley's name because Bill had never really made an entry on Hadley in the database because she'd been so short-lived. There were still a few vampires in the US who were not in the database. Even though I was totally new, and two nights old, I knew so much about the vampires and the vampire world, I could probably pass for being much older. I had absorbed so much information from Eric, Thalia, Pam and so many others. I knew what to say, what to do and how to act. Plus not being a ravenous new vampire was helpful in playing the role of an older vamp.

It took Niall the better part of two days to find me. He finally went back to Hunter's room and saw the poster and figured it out. In the meantime, I'd popped back home to retrieve my wallet and to get some clothes. I needed at least a jacket so that I wouldn't stand out so much, and more appropriate clothes than I'd worn the night I'd left. I took a large handbag so that I could take my hairbrush, a bit of makeup and an additional change of clothes. I thought about taking a quick shower but I couldn't see risking that Eric could come back into the room or that someone would hear the water running and alert him. I left all my jewelry, even the locket, because I knew that Niall could find me quickly if I wore it. I didn't take my cell phone because it had a GPS chip. I withdrew cash from my personal account at an ATM in New Orleans and then went back to Banff and exchanged some of it for Canadian dollars. I needed money for blood. The teleporting was, in the end, the great motivator. If I did enough of it, it left me totally ravenous. I remembered Claudine commenting that popping was energy intensive. She wasn't kidding. But if you were well fed, it seemed easy. As long as you knew where you were going, or had an image of it, you could get to anywhere it seemed.

I was spending the daytime in an aboveground stone coffin in the local graveyard. It was disgusting, but I told myself that if Pam had done it, I could do it. The second night in Banff I checked my email from an internet café while drinking several bottles of True Blood. I had been thinking about that Oklahoma Were. I forwarded the email to Liesel, asking her to handle it, along with suggestions. She wrote back almost immediately asking where I was. It made me think that Eric had called her. I replied that I was in one of the outer rings of the Inferno, working my way inward, steadily. She liked Dante. Within about two minutes I got an email from Roberto asking me to please call them. I told them both by email that I couldn't call right now. Then he wrote back and asked me if I was would be able to resume work earlier than planned in October, since I was already out and about. He probably was trying to discern whether I was still able to read people. I told him I was definitely still able to work but that I wasn't sure about my dates. I still had a yearly contract with him for working in the casino as a telepath. Given the way things had been going, I had to be realistic that while he had been my friend, I was now in every way his inferior, especially since Roberto was a powerful figure, effectively the architect of the Alliance. Our contract for my services was binding in the vampire and the human world and in case I decided to stick it out, I couldn't really chance getting on Roberto's wrong side. I would have to think about what I could do with my contract obligations. I was supposed to give him at least a month's notice if I decided to opt out. But I knew I could work. I could read humans, Weres, vampires and even a fairy prince.

I was desperate for a shower but didn't want to chance going to a hotel. I washed up in the bathroom in the internet café. I'd bought a few new clothing items, since my clothes would get dirty in the graveyard. I kept it simple by just dressing in black. I'd found by chance that I was really able to disguise myself in shadows. In fact, I could fade even in moderately lit areas. It was like the kind of veiling that my Great-Uncle Dermot was able to do. I was guessing that was some kind of magic just like the teleporting, but it cost me very little energy to accomplish it in comparison. I had seen only three vampires up close so far while in Banff and two of them did not even see me because I'd kept myself veiled. The third seemed to notice me, but only when I'd zoomed into his head a bit while I was veiled. He was sharper and he detected it. He sniffed the air, trying to figure out where I was, since I was hard to see and I finally thought he had perceived me in the shadows. I popped away from him, back to the graveyard. The fact that the other two had not even noticed me made me wonder if I didn't even smell like a regular vampire. Maybe they just weren't as sharp. Maybe they were very young.

Niall found me on the third night. I was annoyed because it meant I'd have to move and I'd just been scoping out a restaurant that needed a waitress at night. It was September 30. After talking with him briefly and expressing my sincere regrets over what a frustrating relation I had proven to be, I popped to the Aztec Nights casino. I wanted to get away before he did that net thing again. That had really stung like the dickens when I'd escaped him at Hunter's house.

I'd decided that since midnight marked the 1st of October, I could start my six nights for the month of October at midnight and start to fulfil the terms of my contract. I just wouldn't make a big announcement of my presence. But if Roberto's staff saw me over the course of the night, it would suffice to meet the terms of my four hours. He' probably take my word for it that I had worked anyway. My turning was going to have broad impacts on the casino work shifts in the short term. Roberto was requiring that everyone work at least one overnight shift while I was in town, and I was working extra days this month to make sure I got to see all employees. Roberto's biggest concern over the years were his employees. Most of the illegal activity at that hotel and casino had actually come from them.

Using my visual recollection of the casino, I'd popped onto a ledge of the west wall of the casino. It was about a meter wide and about nine meters above the floor. There were huge decorative sculptures in the center of the ledges on the west and east walls of the casino. But the ends near the north and south walls provided plenty of space where I could sit and survey the casino floor from above. The corners were more shadowed and I could discreetly sit in the shadows, or even veil myself if necessary.

The casino was deafening. It took even more getting used to than it had when I first worked there as a human. So far, I had to say I was hating being a vampire. It was inordinately painful. Even after ten minutes my head was still throbbing from the sensory overload. Thankfully, the night was pretty uneventful until around 3 am when I saw someone pickpocketing the gambling tourists in the slots area. He was very stealthy, and a human. It seemed that he had carefully tried to pick areas with less security camera coverage. Clever. I popped down to go after him and found people drew back as I popped into the crowd. I'd become aware of the fact that when I moved to land on exact locations that I would slow down and it seemed as if I left some sort of almost fluid dark cloud streaming behind me as I slowed into place. It tended to frighten people. I had to work on that if I was going to keep going, I realized. Because it made it _very _obvious that I was not human, which might sometimes be a disadvantage. I firmly grabbed the pickpocket and pulled his arm out from the inside breast pocket of his jacket, with the red ladies wallet still in his hand. He looked at me with terror in his eyes. Although my strength was enjoyable, the idea that I was inspiring fear was not making me happy, even in this situation. Undaunted, I marched him right back over to the retirement-age lady whose purse he'd rifled in passing and extended his arm and hand still holding the wallet toward her, saying,

"He says you dropped this. You should really keep your purse zipped closed out here on the floor, ma'am." I nodded to her and then pulled the man, who started to whimper after looking at me again, off toward the security guard at the south door. Benjie, a guard whom I'd known for the past three years, looked at me wide-eyed. He seemed nervous while looking at me and I realized my fangs were run down. I tried to set him more at ease by being friendly just as before.

"Benjie, you guys should check this one out. He's pickpocketing. I gave back the one he just got, but I'm sure he's got more in his jacket and pockets. I think they must have some of it on the security footage, from where I caught him. But he's working that area near the slots where the view is obstructed by the column." I pointed in the general direction he'd been thieving.

Benjie still looked at me a bit apprehensively and nodded. "Sure thing… Sookie," he said, as if trying out the first name to see if that was still okay with me. A lot of vampires really try to be distant and intimidating. I wasn't planning to be one of them. He knew what I was and that was all the caution he needed. I didn't want to add to his fear.

"I'm gonna keep prowling. Hey, is Joey off tonight?"

Benjie nodded, still wide-eyed while grasping the pickpocket by the arm. Joey and Benjie usually worked together but I guess the new schedules that started on the 1st had split their work days. I adored Joey, who had a great sense of humor and was a general favorite among the security crew and hotel staff.

"Well, maybe I'll see him tomorrow." I smiled and nodded goodbye and strode off toward the north side of the hall. It made me feel bad that Benjie acted afraid of me.

I stopped briefly at the blackjack tables and said hello to Henry Lin, who'd been working in the Aztec Nights for more than eight years. Henry, who was my same height, looked over at me briefly and then glanced back again at me sharply, as if concerned. While his bettors placed their bets he nodded to me and said,

"Sookie, are you okay?" he looked me up and down again as if something was wrong.

"Henry, I'm a vampire now, remember? You don't get much variation in state of being." I'd actually told some people in the casino that I was going to change because I figured it would make the adjustment smoother for everyone. Henry was one of them. Henry had become a friend, and I'd even met his parents, wife and five children. I had been a guest in their home several times.

"I can see _that_," he said quietly while dealing. "But are you _okay_? You seem not yourself. It's not your usual energy."

"Well, I guess that's because I'm dead, Henry," I said with a frown. Henry was an empath, though not a telepath.

"It doesn't make a difference to me if you're dead. Your energy is yours, it's unique. You are very unhappy. What happened to you, if you don't mind my asking? I thought you were happy to be making the change?" he said very quietly while managing his bettors. I read his thoughts. He didn't care if I was a vampire or a human. I was his friend and he was worried about me, about what he felt, what he saw.

"I'm fine." I didn't want to be abrupt, but I said simply, "We both need to keep working. Have a good night. Maybe I'll see you later." And with that, I faded discreetly and then popped onto a ledge on the east wall, to continue watching.

Henry saw too much, I thought to myself. He could really capture your emotional state so quickly.

The east end of the casino was a bit quieter. It was farther from the slot machines, which were really loud. My painfully sharp senses were finally beginning to be a bit more manageable. The first few nights as a vampire had been sheer hell. I'd spent so much time on sensory overload and yet the first few nights awake I'd also been sort of mentally dazed, and not really putting things together very clearly. It was like I got stuck on minor details, in my own thoughts. It was very annoying. But now I was settling down more and I was better able to filter and process, to think more clearly. I had to say that, even though I wasn't liking being a vampire, it really improved my ability to be sharp out on the casino floor. I could stay farther away and take in more of what was going on. It was still deafening, though. Especially with my hearing as acute as it was. I sat on the ledge, leaning against the northeast corner and surveyed things, trying to learn to focus on voices, not on the noise of all the machinery. It was a real challenge.

About half an hour after I'd talked to Henry, I saw Roberto come into the casino below me with two bodyguards. He crossed over to the south side to talk to Benjie, who was back on the floor, and then he strode over to talk to Henry. Clearly someone had told him I was in the Casino. I faded as much as I could into the corner on the ledge. But the wall was light colored, the hall was well lit and I was all in black. I tried to will myself into total shadow because really I just didn't want to talk. And I had no idea if he would know that Eric was looking for me, but I suspected based on Liesel's asking where I was, that he did. And he'd wanted me to call them. I watched Roberto sniffing the air discreetly, and I could tell he knew I was still here. He was trying to track me. I tried to stay far away from his mind. I was sure he'd be one of those sharp enough to know I was reading him even if it was from far away. He started walking toward the east wall, _Shit_, I said to myself, and popped over to the opposite wall's ledge, where I had started my night. Again, I tried to fade as much as possible. I just wanted to finish my work for the night and then leave quietly. Roberto kept moving east but then suddenly stopped and stood stock-still. Suddenly he wheeled around and looked directly at me across on the west wall ledge. At first I wasn't sure if he even really saw me in the shadows in the corner, but then, as he started walking toward the west wall and his gaze remained fixed on me, I knew he did. It was like he could see through whatever veiling or glamour I was using. But Roberto was very sharp, just the way Stan and Eric were.

He finally stood below the west wall ledge with his two men, looking up at me bemusedly, with his arms behind his back. He was wearing an ivory linen suit with a sky blue shirt, but no tie. I was in dust-covered black, thanks to sitting on the ledges. I unveiled myself and popped down to stand in front of him. He seemed slightly caught off guard but said nothing. I bowed my head low as I stood before him, hoping that that was sufficient. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. I gritted my teeth. His touch sizzled with electricity. I was beginning to wonder if this was part of why vampires do not shake hands with each other or even touch anyone that they don't feel comfortable with. Was this hypersensitivity going to continue this way permanently? It was simply awful.

"Congrats on the Bar exam, Sookie. It was a terrific score. I'm happy for you."

"Thank you," I said quietly, still looking down. It seemed a lifetime ago. Well, actually, I thought ironically, it _was_ a lifetime ago.

"Let's go someplace where we can talk. Let's head upstairs. How long have you been here?"

I kept my head down, and said, "Since midnight."

He looked at his watch and noted it was almost 4 am.

"You're pretty much done for the night, then. Come on up to my office with me so we can chat."

I glanced up at him. It was said with a smile but it was pretty much an order from what I could see. We left the casino by the east door through which he had entered and walked toward the elevators and waited briefly. We entered the elevator and he motioned to the guards to remain so that we would be alone. The doors closed he turned to me. I continued to keep my eyes on the floor.

"Sookie, you can drop it already. Relax," he said in a quiet tone of voice.

I raised my eyes slightly but kept them focused on the elevator doors.

"Does Eric know you're here? When we spoke to him yesterday he sounded upset and worried… Liesel said he sounded as if you just took off? He didn't want to tell us anything else, just that he wanted you to call him if we saw you."

"Really? Okay." I tried to stay focused on business. I paused long enough to seem as if I was making a note of it and then said, "It was a pretty quiet night tonight. I caught a pickpocket. It's much easier to see them from up on the wall. He was working sort of a narrow blind zone for the cameras. Pretty slick. And you know, I think that new guy at the roulette tables bears watching. He's way too interested in the bank. He was really thinking about the security set up, too. Maybe he was just bored and has seen too many _Ocean's_ movies, or maybe he's up to something. Perhaps Tony should pull his background check again just to be sure there's nothing fabricated. Or maybe ask Henry spend time around him. Henry's so shrewd, he'll catch him if he's up to something."

As I stood there in the elevator speaking I became aware of Roberto's eyes scanning over me, and then I caught his thoughts… I was beautiful and quite intriguing and he was sorry he never had the chance to have sex with me before I was turned, though he'd still be interested now? And he was thinking about just that. Sex. With me. _What!?_ I was just shocked. Vampire telepathy just sucked, I thought to myself. It had removed that last shroud of silence from my world and I was hearing all kinds of stuff I _really_ didn't want to hear. My voice quavered as I asked about Liesel.

"She's fine, she'll be back tomorrow. She's in LA tonight with family," he said, not changing his thoughts away from _me_ in the least. His thoughts weren't sleazy, though. They were not even objectifying. I frankly would have been able to deal with it better if they had been. I could have been more dismissive of them.

He reached over and stroked my cheek and said, "You really seem kind of down, Sookie. Are you okay?"

This time I flinched at his touch. In that moment however, I was shocked to realize that the attraction was, and had always been, mutual. I _liked_ him touching me. And his wife was my good friend and they really loved each other. This is _very_ messed up, I thought to myself. Even worse than that first night with Pam. Because I realized that it wasn't even necessarily all his fault. Some of this was _me_. I was drawing out these sexual feelings from people. Well, the whole vampire sexuality thing was something that I was just not ready to deal with at present. I needed it to go away. Immediately. I could barely even cope with everything else that was going on in my head.

"Roberto, you need to stop," I said quietly. "Change the subject mentally. Change it or really, I'm going to leave."

He looked at me furtively. "You heard my thoughts?" he said in a low voice. "I… didn't realize. I'm sorry if I upset you. I thought it would just be like before. I… I'll try to be more… considerate, in future." He looked away. "Look, I know your affections lie elsewhere. Really mine do, too. Don't worry about it, okay?" He paused and then said again, "I'm really sorry."

I'd made him feel bad, embarrassed. Actually I felt bad, too. It was the kind of stuff you heard all the time in human minds and most of the time it was just meaningless fantasy that people never act on. I felt clumsy and uncomfortable.

The elevator doors opened and he exited, holding the elevator door open and waiting for me to exit. He led me toward his offices. As we entered he stopped at his assistant Julian's desk to query my accommodations. Julian greeted me with a smile and a nod. He looked at me a bit curiously, since he knew I'd been turned just a short time before.

"I'm staying elsewhere, Roberto. Thank you," I said.

"What do you mean you're staying elsewhere? Where elsewhere?" He seemed very caught off-guard. I had always stayed in the hotel. For the past eight years. I could see he wanted to make sure that he hadn't scared me out of his hotel because of his little fantasy episode in the elevator. He was now thoroughly embarrassed.

"I'm actually staying out of state," I said simply. "But thanks for the concern about my arrangements."

He looked at me with puzzlement, and his eyes narrowed. Even Julian looked up at me, quite puzzled.

"What do you mean _out of state_?" asked Roberto.

"I'm just staying elsewhere, " I said softly, still looking down.

"California?" he asked, still perplexed.

"I'm not even staying in the US, actually," I said quietly.

He jerked his head back as if he had received a jolt and then pulled me by my hand, which gave _me _a genuine jolt, into his office and closed the door. Thankfully, he let go of my hand right away.

"What is going on with you? What do you mean, Sookie? Not in the US? What can you possibly mean? How is that _possible_?"

"Just as I said. I can't explain right now. But I'm fine, thank..." I looked down again, so that he wouldn't think I was trying to be insolent.

He cut me off before I could finish, "Sookie, would you please drop the deferential bullshit and look me in the eyes? What is with you? We are friends, are we not?"

I looked him in the eyes and said, "We _were_ friends. I'm assuming nothing about anything right now."

He stared at me in amazement and then slowly turning his head slightly to the side said, "Look, I'm really sorry about the thing in the elevator. But…" he paused and looked at me intently. "It's not even that, is it? What is going on with you? Why are you acting this way? Did something happen with Eric? What happened to you to make you act this way? What's going on?"

"I need to think about finishing my evening, Roberto. I need to be careful with time. I'm not much used to it yet. I think I need to leave soon, if I'm getting back to the place I'm staying with time to spare."

Roberto stared at me, seemingly at a loss as to how to proceed.

"I think you should stay here, Sookie. I'm sure we can give you your usual suite or something equivalent. Why are you even staying elsewhere if you're working? You've always stayed here. Why not now? Are your accommodations where you're staying even suitable?"

I looked at him with a wry smile and said, "Let's just say I've gone native. I'm sorry to have missed Liesel. Tell her I'm sorry I didn't email her back. I'm not sure I will come again tomorrow night. Perhaps this coming week. I checked the schedule in the employee lounge to make sure of the new shifts. Do you wish to be notified when I arrive? I can call Jules to let him know I am here if that's what you prefer." I did not want him having any advance notice of my plans. It wasn't a good idea because I was sure he'd just tell Eric.

He just stared at me, looking almost stunned. "Sookie, what I want is to know what has happened. I want to know where you're staying. And that you're _safe_… And not just me, Liesel would want to know. If something's wrong, you should stay with us. Really, if you were upset by what I was thinking before, I absolutely _assure _you…" He reached out offering me his hand upturned.

He felt genuinely bad. He was trying to be nice and I'd made him feel just terrible and I couldn't begin to explain why I wouldn't stay there. But I really had to get out of there. Now it was my turn to cut him off.

"With respect, I should depart. Thank you. Thank you for your kindness, Roberto. You really don't know how much it means to me. I'll fulfill the contract through the end of the month and then perhaps you can get Barry to fill in for a while? I'm sure Stan wouldn't mind and I need the break. Good night," I said bowing my head. I sincerely hoped that he didn't see the tear that coursed down my cheek as I popped away.


	6. Chapter 6

**VI.**

Roberto thought long and hard about what to say. When Eric called him back there had to be less than twenty minutes of night left in Louisiana. He intended to keep it brief. Even though they could finally talk freely, he approached things cautiously.

"So yes, I saw her. I brought her up to the office and spoke to her. She worked the casino floor for her usual four hours. She started at midnight. I didn't know she was there until she was almost done for the night. I don't think anyone did. She caught a thief, a pickpocket, out on the floor and delivered him to one of my security guys, then spoke to Henry Lin. I heard she was here from security and went down to see her. She was tricky to find- she was perched up on a ledge on the west wall, about twenty feet above the floor. And she was, I don't know, sort of veiled, in the shadows. I had a hard time seeing her at first even thought I could smell her. I think she had bounced back and forth between the east and west walls. You didn't tell us that she teleports, Eric. It's quite extraordinary. I've never seen it before, personally. It's really an amazing skill. And the veiling… I guess you can really see that fae blood in how she turned. That guy Kieran, up in Seattle, supposedly does stuff like that, right? I've heard he might be part Fae."

Eric was silent on the other end. Amazing skill? _Fucking disaster_ is more like it. She his and she was gone. And she was being extremely elusive. Only Niall seemed to be able to keep up with her and it was annoying as hell to have _Niall_ telling him where his own wife was. And even Niall seemed unable to keep hold of her. After listening to the description of how he had tried to restrain her at Hunter's house, he was frankly worried that in Niall's zeal and frustration that Niall could harm her since he implied she was likely hurt escaping him. How badly did she want to get away from them all that she was willing to get burned by magic?

Roberto just waited. He was clearly getting the feeling that Sookie had taken off and that there had been some sort of serious problem between the two of them.

Finally, Eric said as calmly as he could, "So where is she?"

"You mean now? I honestly don't know. She said, if you can believe this, that she was not even staying in the US. I guess that means Canada or Mexico? You know… come to think of it, she must be staying someplace east of here. She was worried about time. Although I don't know, maybe she just wanted to leave because I pressed her to give me more information and to stay here as usual."

Eric fumed on the other end of the line. He simply had to get her back. How could it have all gone so wrong? She'd now been gone for four nights. She'd come back and taken her wallet and left her jewelry, including, ominously, her engagement and wedding rings and even the stupid Brigant locket, which was going to make it considerably harder even for Niall to find her, though perhaps in retrospect, that was a good thing. She wasn't even drawing funds on their joint account, but on a smaller personal account she'd kept. She'd left all their joint cards. What was she thinking? How could this be happening? He almost hated himself for it. He had kept up the slow and steady pressure for years about her being turned and _this_ was the culmination? It was simply incomprehensible.

"Will she be back tomorrow?" he said finally, his voice tight.

"Well, that's the thing. She was rather evasive and said she wasn't sure. I got the distinct feeling that she doesn't want anyone to know her plans. She also said that she was going to only fulfill the contracted work through October. As if she was giving me notice. She suggested that I should get Barry Horowitz to fill in. Of course, I've no interest in that. He's not in her league at all." He paused a moment. What he wanted to say was going to no doubt be taken badly, but he had to say it. "Look, I don't want to intrude in your business, Eric, but she started to cry as she left. I don't know what happened between you two, but I am… concerned. She has worked for me for eight years. She is a personal friend of mine, and of my wife's. She is obviously quite distraught about something."

"You're right. It isn't your business," Eric said coldly.

Roberto was silent for a time, thinking of her, and of her manner. After talking to Henry Lin and then actually seeing her, he had to say that he was _very_ concerned. He hoped that Liesel would be back tomorrow as planned. Perhaps Liesel could get more out of her, and get her to stay with them? Finally he said,

"Well, I have to say that I am rather disquieted by the way I see her."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Roberto?" Eric hissed.

Roberto was silent for a moment thinking back on her manner, the lack of animation in her features. He could only conclude that she was in a dangerous place. A new vampire was a vampire not very vested in living on as a vampire. And she was on her own, with no one to cajole her into a better frame of mind. No one to guide her and no sire to tell her not to do anything harmful to herself.

"I think that she's in a dangerous frame of mind, Eric. I honestly think that if you don't find a way to put things right quickly, that you'll lose her."

Eric's mind reeled at that one. Lose her in what sense? As a partner? Or… What Pam had been worried about for all these years? No. However he meant it, it was _not_ happening.

"That won't happen." Eric said firmly. It absolutely couldn't happen. This whole thing was just _fucking inconceivable_. How fucking bad was it that _Roberto_ was telling him this? First he had to listen to Niall telling him about how upset she was and now Roberto? And all of that on top of what Pam had to say, that he had really hurt her.

Roberto, meanwhile, was just silent. Clearly, she couldn't be called or Eric would have her back by now. But then, she could never be glamoured. He didn't think she'd seemed like she'd ever been in Eric's thrall and if she wasn't enthralled by an 1100 year old vampire then what were the chances of a regular sire/child relationship? He'd heard indirectly that even the _Fae_ had trouble glamouring her which was pretty damn incredible. So it really didn't surprise him that she didn't respond quite normally as a vampire child. Perhaps this had upset Eric? But surely it was little different from when she had been human? And if Eric had broken with her, why be so eager to have her back? Was it just to control her, because of her skills? A pride issue? Knowing Eric that certainly would play into it. But still… In spite of his cool manner with things, Eric had obviously been extremely possessive of her. The attachment had appeared quite genuine. So perhaps she has broken with _him_, he thought? Although, breaking with a sire so soon after turning would require an extraordinary will. But, if she couldn't even be glamoured by the Fae… Eric must have done something to hurt her or upset her. It was the only logical explanation. When he had asked her about that, she had been evasive and made efforts to leave. That had to be it.

"Eric, look, I can try to keep her here when she comes back, but I don't know that it will help you much if she is upset with you. I really have no right to restrain her but I can try to keep her comfortable here. Keep her safe. Perhaps Liesel can talk to her. Perhaps we can gain her trust enough to get her to stay. She said she appreciated my kindness. She seemed to act almost as if she was surprised that I was behaving no differently with her." That comment was probably going to piss him off, he realized. It was accusatory and he was sure Eric would take offense. But what the fuck had Eric done to her, he wondered? With 1100 years of experience, how could he have mishandled things so badly? He had to say that he felt very protective of her. If Eric had harmed her in any way, really Eric didn't even deserve her. She was so unique. So valuable. Actually, really _invaluable_. In terms of what she had been able to do within the Alliance in easing relations with other races and the humans, and in terms of her telepathic ability, which seemed intact, if not broadened. Yes, invaluable. And she was so very lovely…

As if picking up on his train of thought, Eric shot back the comment,

"Roberto, just so that we're clear, Alliance or not, if you so much as lay a hand on my wife, I will fucking flay you alive just like I did Madden."

Roberto was silent for a moment, taking in the implication of such an offensive and threatening statement. Eric was typically much more understated. Things must _really_ be bad if he was making such an overt threat. After a moment he said,

"I'm so gratified that my offer of assistance, in the face of your evidently botched job of turning her, is appreciated Eric. It's great to see that you have her interests above your own at present," Roberto said cuttingly. The fucking bastard, he thought to himself. He's screwed up turning her and now he's threatening _me_ while I'm trying to do _him_ a favor? If these were different times I would just fucking take her away from him. Carpe diem. If he's done something to her, I could still try to get her to just move here if she doesn't want to go back to him. She can divorce him and her grandfather will protect her from him. She could be free to live here and work as she wishes, continuing with the Alliance. He wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it. Liesel would love to have her living here. I would love it. She is charming and extremely clever. She would be an invaluable asset. If he messed up and can't straighten it out, it's not her problem. This can be played carefully to see how things evolve. But it's a dangerous game because Eric is not someone to take it lightly. Still, if _she_ made the choice…

Fine, Eric thought to himself. Fine. He clearly gets the picture that this is a fucking disaster and that she's run away and that she can't be summoned. Not what I'd want to be admitting to anyone, but let's stay focused on the goal. _I have to get her back_. Roberto is at least discreet. As is Stan, since clearly Stan hasn't shared any of the info that Sookie was acting oddly after she rose, even with Roberto. That's good because, really, having Sookie take off as she had looked quite bad and put both of them at risk as a result. Was she so angry at him that she could turn her back on everything? Perhaps Roberto could be useful getting her back, but Roberto was also a threat. Roberto had always looked at her in a way that bothered him, because it wasn't just the usual attraction for the pretty and curvaceous blonde. No, Roberto truly liked her. In a manner similar to how he himself had liked her before they were bound. Was she vulnerable enough to be suckered into that, he worried? There had to be a way to keep her away from Roberto until she was back to being herself.

"My focus right now is having Sookie return safely home, Roberto. And of course, I appreciate any assistance you can offer. But I want to be perfectly clear as to the limits of my gratitude. You've had a thing for her for years and if you take advantage of her when she is upset or vulnerable I will fucking _kill_ you. You have my word on it. And don't think I don't know how much you'd just love to have her sitting pretty in Nevada in your 'care'. But she's coming back to Louisiana."

"Let's save the insults, shall we, Eric? If you think that I would do anything to take advantage of her, I don't even know why we're even speaking. The plan would be to have _my wife_ try to deal with her. Is there anything in particular that I need to know? Anything useful? Because I have no clue as to how I could keep her here, since she does this teleporting thing, other than perhaps restraining her in silver, which I would not do, no matter how much you want her back. Frankly, I really don't think I have the right to keep her here at all if she wishes otherwise."

"I don't think she can be easily restrained anyway. I'm not even sure about the silver, but I agree that isn't an option. Pain would be extremely counterproductive. As for information… She has problems with hypersensitivity to things. And she hasn't been feeding adequately. She's only drinking bottled blood. But don't try to get her to feed from any humans, okay? She's… You know how she is. She isn't ready for that."

"How do you know she's still only having synthetic?"

"Her grandfather told me. When she comes back, tell her you heard she was staying in Banff. Make her feel it's perhaps not safe for her to go back there. Try to get her to stay the night there in Vegas, even if in another hotel if she doesn't feel safe staying with you. I can be there in a few hours."

"So she's really been staying in Canada?" Roberto said, incredulous.

"You know, actually, I will send Pam to stay with you and have her wait for Sookie to reappear." He had to say that the fact that she was using Hadley Savoy's name in Alberta was a very bad sign in his mind.

"Eric, what really happened?" Roberto asked quietly.

Eric was silent. What _had_ happened? She panicked when he lost his temper? He'd lost his temper countless times before with her. No, she saw something, or _thought_ she saw something, in him and it made her leave. Perhaps in the end, Pam had been right all along. She was so unique. It was unreasonable to expect that she would turn like anyone else. Her resistance to being called should not really have been a surprise. Her brain simply didn't work for that kind of magic. The teleporting? Completely unexpected. Niall was sure that was the Fae heritage. But really, the only thing that had truly worried him was her lack of hunger. He was angry that night, and also worried, maybe even, he had to admit, frightened, that she was not hungry, And hating himself thinking that he had harmed her by turning her. A vampire that doesn't feed is a vampire that doesn't last. She had seemed dazed, paradoxically wanting to go back to work rather than feed. She'd seemed so out of it, not even realizing that she was teleporting. He'd unlocked that door for Pam and had immediately taken in that something was very odd. He'd only seen one other vampire in his long life that could teleport, many hundreds of years before. But the real thing was that she wasn't hungry. She wasn't ravenous. How was it that she wasn't hungry? And what was it that she had seen, or _thought she saw_, in him? He had held her firmly but not enough to have hurt her and yet she said he _was_ hurting her. Just as he'd been pushing into her head trying to figure it out, he realized that she was teleporting and then… she was gone. Pam said that it really had hurt her, both physically and mentally. That her senses were hyperacute. She'd had three bags of blood in the house and half a bottle with Bill. Niall said she'd been through six bottles the following day at her cousin's son's house. But that first night? She had to have been lightheaded, weak, and she had acted confused. Could she have misunderstood something, misread something in him? He had to believe that she thought he would harm her if she had left in such a fashion. It was simply incredible that she could actually think that. She had told Niall that she wouldn't go back. Even though Niall told her he would never harm her, but Niall said she was unconvinced and said she was being irrational.

Finally he said, "She was acting oddly when she woke. She woke a day early. She wasn't hungry. She had only three pints of blood and started teleporting. She had a lot of hypersensitivity issues to sound, to touch. She hadn't had enough blood, and she wasn't thinking clearly. She just… wasn't thinking clearly yet. How is she now?"

"Well, she was seemingly fine. As I said, she caught a pickpocket, and she expressed concerns about our newest roulette guy. She's talked to several people she knows on the floor. I guess she seemed fine in terms of work. Her demeanor is what worried me. Henry Lin, who as you know is really friendly with her, expressed concern to me. He told me something is very wrong with her," Roberto said. "When I went down looking for her and talked to him, he told me he was very worried about her."

That gave Eric pause.

"What, specifically, does Henry have to say?" Eric asked. Sookie liked Henry very much. He wasn't sure if Roberto knew that Henry was an empath. If Henry said something was wrong with Sookie, he wanted to know exactly what Henry said.

Roberto hesitated. When he had talked to Henry out on the floor it was before he had seen her for himself. He had sort of brushed off Henry's statement. Now he was beginning to be very concerned taking it all in, however. Very, _very_ concerned. He had gotten to the point where even if he'd never specifically asked him, he believed that Henry Lin was an empath. He was extraordinary at reading people, even if he wasn't reading their actual thoughts like Sookie could. He had proven useful in between Sookie's visits. Frankly, Henry's description of Sookie's emotional state was sobering taken together with the facts of the situation and his own observation of her demeanor. Really where she ended up, Louisiana or Nevada, didn't matter as long as she was safe.

"Henry said she's very depressed. He told me that he was worried that she could even harm herself."


	7. Chapter 7

**VII.**

I could feel the dawn coming. I leaned against the stone coffin facing toward the east, sitting on the ground, which was even colder than I was, trying to decide whether or not to get in. Part of me just wanted to wait for the sun to come up one final time. I wondered how badly it would hurt. Could it be any worse than the way I felt at present: lost, alone, and utterly miserable? Everything had turned out wrong and I really didn't know how to even begin making it better. I thought of all the pros and cons. On the pro side, I'd be at peace, and even if finding that peace hurt like hell, it would be final. I wouldn't be causing anyone any trouble and I wouldn't have to deal with the consequences of my choices anymore. On the con side, my family might spend years wondering what happened and worry that I was maybe still out there hiding somewhere. They wouldn't have closure. Plus, some part of me realized, in spite of whatever issues I had with Eric, that it would be very hard on Eric when he felt it, though since I was west of Louisiana, he might not be aware of it at the actual time. Could it wake him from his 'sleep'? Maybe. I worried it might even be painful to him. In spite of everything, I didn't want to do anything to cause him pain. I'd tried to completely shut down my connection to him, but I was certain he hadn't done the same. On the other hand, at least it would bring it to a sense of closure for him. And he could probably assure Jason and everyone else that I was really gone. I felt bad about Pam. I would have wanted to say goodbye. But she'd just try to talk me out of it.

I went over it in my mind. Reasons not to meet the sun: Jason, Pam, Claudine and other good friends who shouldn't be left wondering. _Hurting Eric_. Reasons to wait for sunrise: peace, resolution, freedom and I'm already dead anyway, so why the hell not? I could just get it over with. My eyes filled with tears and I rose and pushed the heavy lid off the stone coffin and climbed inside. Even after cleaning it and pushing the bones to one end, it was disgusting. I hated the smell. I'd do it for _one_ more day. I lifted the lid slightly and guided it back into place. Tomorrow night I could try to sit down and write to Jason, Pam and Claudine and explain. I really couldn't see doing it without some kind of attempt to explain it to them. It would just be too selfish. But I knew it would be hard for them to accept. What could I possibly say to Eric? This was all a big mistake? I'm too broken to fix, so let's forget about it? I simply can't stand having you in my head? If I thought you were too controlling before, this is enough to drive me totally insane? I felt the heavy ache and fatigue of the rising sun even inside the dusty and grungy darkness of the stone coffin. I tried to imagine living like this, resting in a stone coffin or in buried in the ground for hundreds of years. I really didn't know how vampires in prior centuries managed. But as I died for the day, I had a vague sense of not giving up. It was like there had been a strong pull from a thin silken thread. Not exactly a lifeline. Or was it? It was that slender golden thread that was keeping me going. In a subtle way, it called to me.

**

* * *

**

**_Earlier the Same Night, Pam's thoughts_**

_I really don't think he realized he was hurting her. She was just like a raw nerve when she awoke. When I consider how she was when I just touched her… Truly like a raw nerve. She could brush away the call at a distance but when he was right there, trying to get into her head… thinking about the fact that she's a telepath, I guess it had to have hurt, didn't she say things were unbearably loud in her mind? But I never would have thought about it until it was too late, either. And this business of teleporting? Who knew? Like something out of a vampire movie, not real life. But with what Eric and her grandfather discussed, it makes sense, with the fae blood and all. The turn sometimes enhances what was there… and her mind was already so sharp and attuned to so much. She'd had his blood for so many years, it must have been preserving everything, and then the turn itself heightens the senses so. Really, I really can't imagine what she's been going through. We should have thought this through better. She's right. She wasn't completely human. It was like we just ignored that point. We never even considered it! _We're_ the vampires. If she was going to be turned, why didn't we think about it in greater depth? We let her down. _I_ let her down. Eric loves her, but let's face it. So much of his understanding of Sookie has originated in _my_ understanding of Sookie. He's been the one to use the information so skillfully, but for years, I've tried to help him understand her. How could we have missed the obvious?_

_The facts as they stand right now, no matter how we look at it, are that it's been a disaster. Eric's right. Sure I can say that if Eric had been gentler, more patient, more circumspect that night… but Eric is Eric and she's so damn difficult at times. And he's right- for security reasons, she _needs_ to answer his call. I can understand his losing his temper. Hell, I've lost my temper with her how many times in the last decade when she wouldn't do what I want? She always questions _everything_ you ask her to do. She was really out of it that night, though. She looked so confused, even if she could focus on reading her email. How could she not have realized how she got into her office? I mean, it was like she awoke half there mentally. I'm sure she'll be fine with more blood, but really she was in a confused fog that night._

_Eric's been so sullen since Niall left tonight. If Niall can't find her anymore what are we going to do? Now he's even worse on the phone with Roberto. The look on his face… Is she really in Vegas when she had just been in Banff earlier in the evening? How will we ever keep up with her? He's threatening to do _what_ to Roberto? Is Roberto holding her or something? Oh Eric is so angry…What does he think Roberto… Oh, I see what he must be thinking… She is valuable. Who wouldn't want to have Sookie around to claim use of her abilities. What? _Silver_? Did he actually say _silver_? They have _got_ to be kidding. No! She'll _never_ come back if they try to hurt her! Good, he realizes that. Look at him. I have never seen Eric like this in the entire time I have known him. He is so far beyond anger into some other place... I don't even know where he is mentally. He barely even read everything I had him signing earlier. I've never seen him do that in all the time I've known him. Well, I don't blame him. I'd always worried she could come to harm if he pushed it, but now, ironically, even with her _choice_, it's been a disaster. We always think of turning someone as such a normal, easy thing. Would I ever chance it with Tan after seeing this? He can stay warm and grow old. Sure he's just a regular human, but I couldn't bear it if I killed him and it ended in anything even remotely similar to this. Eric's right- it's just inconceivable. Could she really just leave… and not even say goodbye to me? I feel how dark her emotions are… so dark. _She better not do anything stupid._ No, I just don't think she will. I can nudge her conscience and she'll hang in there. She has to. She _owes_ me. She owes me for making me care about her so much. As soon as I see her again, I'm going to remind her of what I've had to put up with for the past decade. Not just from her, but from the _two_ of them. So she had better just settle it down and find a way to cope… I am _not_ letting her of the hook. She needs to see it will all be fine. We will be laughing about this in a few decades. Well, maybe a century or two. What now? Look at his face…_

Eric looked at her soberly, with his hand at his brow and said,

"You're going to Vegas during the day. We have to make the arrangements quickly. You're staying at the Nights until further notice. He's not sure when she's going back." He picked up his laptop and started typing rapidly. "I'll tell them to contact Tan for arranging the Anubis pickup."

"What do you want me to do if she shows up, Eric? What am I supposed to do?"

"First, you talk to her. Get her calmed down. Blame me for the whole thing. I really don't care what the hell you have to tell her. Just follow your instincts and get her to calm down. Second, you keep Roberto away from her. Because he'd happily keep her there. He's lying to himself about how interested he is in this little opportunity. He'll wear her down because she's always liked him and she's so damn naïve. She's the _ultimate_ asset in his mind. I don't even want to think about it." He slammed his fist down on the desk leaving a dent in the hardwood.

He rose from his desk and they left the office.

_Could he actually think that Roberto could take Sookie away from him with her agreement? _Now_ who's got a screw loose? I can see Roberto seducing her about as easily as I'd be able to. No matter how confused Sookie is, she's not_ that_ far gone. I wonder if I should tell him that I still feel her. That I've felt her ever since that time I gave her some of my blood when we had that car accident two years ago. I was always been so worried about how angry he might get, even though it was me giving her the blood when she'd really gotten hurt. I don't think she ever told him. Such a secretive girl, at times, that Sookie. But I still feel her, even now, I guess because my blood is really partly his. And I know that she's still open to me through that slender tie. I know that even if she's doing badly that she still clings to it. I feel it. It might give him reassurance. But given that he's all over the thing with Roberto, maybe he'd take it wrong and say we were doing things behind his back. Really, Eric takes 'mine' to a whole other realm with her._

"Alright. Good. I can truthfully tell her you were behaving like an idiot and even smile when I say it. But really Eric, she may like Roberto and even think he's attractive, but she _loves_ you. He's married to her friend on top of it. I just really think you're off the deep end with the jealousy thing this time. She's too recently human to have bailed on her morals. Besides, I think her morals, sadly, may be too deeply ingrained to be lost or diminshed. I don't see her becoming more playful very easily. I've told you that before, recall? So I think you should just put that whole thing out of your mind. I bet you that nothing like that will ever happen. We just need to get her to understand you both just overreacted and that you certainly didn't realize that you were really hurting her. That's all. It was a misunderstanding."

He grabbed my upper arm and held me firmly. "You don't understand the situation Pam. She left her rings. Her wedding and engagement rings. When she came back and took her wallet, she left all her joint credit cards, all her jewelry, including the rings. Does that sound to you as if she was feeling like it was a mere misunderstanding? _Does_ it? This is not just jealousy. Think of it from his standpoint. She's an attractive asset every way you look at it and he has a long history of lying to himself about his motivations for his emotional involvements because he's so fucking cerebral he has to justify everything. You can't even imagine the fucked up stuff he told himself about his motivations to marry the Were. Political correctness and all kinds of bullshit. He will tell himself he's trying to 'secure her' just to screw her if she stays there for any length of time and will get her into even more of a fucked up state of mind. You keep him away from her. I don't care what you have to do. I don't care if he's a King, I don't give a damn. He doesn't _touch_ her. Clear? You let me know when she's there and I'll come and wait until you think she's in a reasonable frame of mind. Don't even try to tell her that she should talk to me if you think that she's going to panic and run. Your only job is to keep her safely localized and to prevent him from getting too close to her."

"Fine, Eric. Fine," I said nodding my head. I was a little taken aback about the part of leaving her wedding and engagement rings. Perhaps she had taken it a bit worse than I'd realized, then. Or maybe she interpreted his manner as rejecting _her_? Because she certainly was not someone likely to just bail on a marriage. She was very old fashioned that way. Jason was already on his third marriage and she just thought it was appalling. She took her commitments _very_ seriously. Could Roberto really try to steal her? She'd worked for him for eight years and he was certainly, other than perhaps Stan, one of Sookie's biggest proponents. Having her 'in-house' would certainly be advantageous. I could see Eric's concerns but somehow my money was still on our little telepath. Every time I thought that Sookie didn't see something, didn't get something or missed some point, she had proven me wrong. Subtly, because she was in some respects so cautious now. Ever since that whole thing where she had been kidnapped for that Dieter. All her dealings with the Fae. She was so circumspect after that. And that was before the whole law school thing.

Eric looked lost in thought as we headed to the main area of the house. It was very close to dawn. Suddenly he said,

"Did you hear what the Sheriff in Edmonton told me? That she registered with him under the name Hadley Savoy?"

I froze. "The cousin? She registered in the _cousin's_ name?" This was not good, no matter what spin I put on it. That cousin signified everything that was wrong with being turned in her mind.

"Yes," he said, as we headed up the stairs.

_Where is Tan? Where the fuck was the man when I needed him? Probably asleep like some miserable human lump of flesh that I've thought about marrying. Now I'm really distressed. Now Eric has finally done it. Tan had better be in that bed and not off doing some stupid morning salutation yoga or tai chi at dawn shit. I _need_ him. This is such a fucking disaster! The cousin's name! How could she be using the _cousin's _name?_

"Fuck," I said, practically spitting out the word.

He turned to me and was too upset to even smile at my cursing. "My thoughts, exactly," he replied.

When I got to the room I stripped off my clothes and headed toward the secure bedroom space. Before I entered, I grabbed my Blackberry and sent her an email. She was checking her email according to what Eric had heard from Liesel and Roberto.

* * *

_Sookie Stackhouse,_

_Listen to me my little telepathic friend. You are being a miserable pain in the ass by not even calling me to let me know you are okay. You __**owe**__ me, Sookie, for a decade of having to deal with all your human bullshit so graciously. You better call me, or at least write me back, because I am getting very, very annoyed. We have an agreement you and I. We have a life apart from all this political crap and even apart from Eric. If you try to do anything rash without talking to me face to face, I will be __**totally**__ pissed._

_Call me or at least respond to me in some fashion._

_I am _not_ fond of you, because right now I don't like the way you're acting. But I love you. There. Is __**that**__ good enough for you? __**Respond**__._

_Pam_

* * *

I pushed send and hoped that she could imagine my saying it to her face. Really, I just couldn't believe how she could push a person to the absolute limit.

I punched the code into the scanner and let it scan my palm. As the door swung open, I was relieved to see Tan asleep in the bed.

Good. I could hug him even while he slept. He'd be none the wiser.

**

* * *

  
**

**_Dawn, Eric's thoughts_**

As Eric settled himself in their bed, his mind turned to the fateful night she rose. What the hell was it that had made her so afraid? He had probably hurt her arm. Pam had him convinced of that, and Stan had told him that when he had been turned he had had some hypersensitivity issues initially, even though he couldn't 'hear' anyone anymore. But this was beyond hypersensitivity. Something he had done had _frightened_ her, not just hurt her. He was sure of it. Frightened her enough so that she effectively had left him. He played through the scene in her office again, walking in, grabbing her, and pushing into her mind to try to see how she had… Pushing his mind, his thoughts, his voice into her head was what seemed to have really frightened her… but what was it about getting into her head like that that could have been too much for her? …Having someone in her head… in her mind… He stiffened. No… _Dieter_? _Fuck!_ _What I did to her was like what Dieter did to her eight years ago!_ he said to himself. She awoke new and, from all indications, extremely hypersensitive. Yet he had done something to her that was essentially similar to what Dieter had… he was in her mind, trying to control her. From her perspective, trying to _seize_ _control_ of her when she was weakened and vulnerable. Perhaps he had tried to control her, but only to make her feed, and because he needed to understand what was so different in her mind and how she got into that office. But the means… the means… Clearly he had triggered all her memories of what Dieter had done to her. Normally, he was sure she would have fought back mentally, and she had really, by pushing away his call to her, when he was at a distance. But when he had been right there with her, from all indications she was too weak. Instead, she just pulled away from him entirely and disappeared. But surely she could see that his intent was not to harm her? Or could she? Pam had always warned him that Sookie thought vampires were very violent. Could she have actually thought he would hurt her? He had been angry. But still. The thought just left him speechless. She had really thought he would _hurt_ her? Then he realized he was missing the obvious point. He already _was _hurting her by what he was doing at that moment. He just hadn't realized it. Pam was right. He'd _hurt_ her. He closed his eyes and shook his head. This was such a fucking disaster. He'd hurt her, frightened her... The only chance he had to fix things was to let her read him to see that nothing could have been further from his intentions. But to do that, he'd have to be near her. He had to see her. To touch her. She had to see that it was all a misunderstanding, just as Pam said. His mistake, her misinterpretation of his actual intentions.

The dawn weighed heavily on him. He could smell her scent everywhere in their room. He wouldn't lie to himself like that fucking asshole. She was _not_ an asset. She was his partner, his mate. Usually he let pain just be anger. But not with her. He ached with missing her. It was now the longest they had been apart since they had married. He flashed on thoughts of her face, laughing playfully with him… her seriousness when she had been studying, the curve of her neck when her head was bent over her books… the great pride he felt watching her work as a liaison and seeing the immense respect she commanded within the Alliance… her eyes locked on his when they made love. He closed his eyes and tried to sense her. But it seemed that she had somehow managed to block so much of their bond. She was so skilled.. that mind of hers was so clever. How had she managed to figure it out to block him out when she was not even days old? Where was she? Where was she spending her days? Was she safe? How long before…

His mind simply shut down as the sun rose higher.


	8. Chapter 8

**VIII.**

When I rose that night it was already a while after sunset. At least that part of being new was true to form. I was a heavy 'sleeper'. The start of an aurora was evident in the sky. I'd seen the aurora borealis the first night I'd been in Banff. It was quite beautiful. It would be nice to see another one. After thinking about whether to go into town or not, I decided not to chance it. Instead, I went to an internet café in Edmonton that was the partner of the one in Banff. Niall was less likely to find me in Edmonton, which was a little less than three hundred kilometers to the northeast. There was a picture of the Edmonton café on a brochure for the café chain I'd picked up. I used it to help envision where I was going. I created a bit of a stir when I landed on the help desk, but I was blond and curvaceous and I just smiled a lot, so they could hardly complain. I didn't even have to glamour anyone.

I had intended to write to Jason, Pam and Claudine but first, almost as an automatic reflex, I checked my email. The Were in Oklahoma, Jerome, had written back to me stating that sure, he had heard from Liesel and while it was great that she had been a Were and all, he really wanted _me_ to be the one pursuing the issue, rather than Liesel. He knew of me by reputation, trusted me and would talk to me more easily. Then it turned out he knew Alcide. I didn't know what to say. I mulled over how to respond while I went on looking at the Inbox. Next I opened an incredibly obnoxious email from Pam, filled with bad language, outrage, boldfaced fonts and her _love_? _Not_ fondness? Although I'd come to the café with every intention of writing goodbye emails, Pam's email gave me pause. How much had it cost her to say that she loved me? I was sorely tempted to reply and to agree to meet her someplace. Something about reading her email buoyed me. I looked back at how I'd felt at dawn and shook my head. Was it _really_ as bad as I felt it was? I suddenly realized that I missed home. Even if I was trying not to think about Eric, I missed him. It seemed like a very contradictory realization. _I was afraid of him, but I missed him_? Could I really leave this earth without seeing Eric again? Why was I even thinking about leaving? I'd stayed for him. Even if I was mad at him, what was I thinking? It didn't make sense. Missing Pam was less complicated. Pam really was my sister now in a vampire sense. But she had felt like one for years. She had tried to understand. Tried to stop him. The three of us had never been apart for this long in the past eight years. Yes, I truly missed her. And… Eric. I was so confused about Eric, so angry at him. Was I angry or afraid? I couldn't figure it out.

Unexpectedly, as I read Pam's email for a third time, a vampire by the name of Chad appeared and told me that the Sheriff of the southern region in Alberta wanted to speak with me immediately. There was this weird edge to his voice. I logged out of my email account and gave him a thorough going over. _Shit! _I thought to myself. I read Chad's mostly empty mind and saw that some King of Louisiana had been talking to the Sheriff and that I was wanted in the US. Well, I was clearly done in Alberta, and if Eric knew I had been in Canada, in all likelihood I was done in Canada. Thank you to Niall. Kudos for giving me the space and time to figure out my problems. But if the Sheriff thought I would willingly go to his compound with Chad, they were all _very_ sadly mistaken. Eric knew I was too smart for something like that. I looked at Chad and said,

"I'm sorry to leave you in the lurch, Chad. Maybe you should try to get away with telling him you just couldn't find me, because really, you _can't_…" and I popped to the Aztec Nights, west wall.

I really should have held onto my True Blood because, with only a half a bottle on the night, I was lightheaded when I arrived. It could really take it out of you. It was only 8:45 pm, still the evening shift, and I guessed that I should go to the bar and get a few bottles because frankly, even _I _was willing to admit I was starved after popping from Banff to Edmonton to Vegas. It was awful that the stuff tasted like sewage, but at least if you had a good four to six bottles it could keep you functioning. I popped down and left the casino and took the elevator to the lobby bar like a regular person. Adriana was tending bar and she greeted me warmly. She was a Venice-born vampire bartender and she seemed delighted to see that I had been turned. I'd always liked her. She was very jovial and I loved her accent. I ordered two bottles of O negative warm and she served them promptly. I didn't even see her notifying Roberto but I read her thoughts on it. Right through the register, which had a central messaging system. She had messaged Jules, following Roberto's general instructions to all staff, issued only a short time ago. Crap. I decided to just hold my ground. Roberto had at least been nice to me, and he had said that Liesel would be back. Liesel I could deal with, and maybe talk to, for a while. I didn't think that Liesel would stand for anything happening to me. Imagine my surprise when instead of Roberto or Liesel, the person who put a sizzling hand gently on my shoulder was Pam.

"I could just kill you Sookie Stackhouse," she said with a mordant tone. "Good thing you're already dead. Do you have _any_ idea how worried I've been? You did _not_ reply as requested."

I looked at her cautiously. "I got… interrupted. I was going to reply and offer to meet you but had… an interruption. Does he know I'm here?"

"Who?"

"You know who I mean, Pam. Does Eric know? He isn't here is he?" I found myself rapidly scanning for his thought signature or presence.

"No Sookie, he isn't here. He's still back in New Orleans. He is gripped with the depression stemming from the realization of what a _complete_ idiot he was."

I looked at her and probed carefully. She had not told him she was with me. Yet.

"Will you tell him I'm here?" I asked cautiously.

"No, I won't," she said. Meanwhile, I read that she wouldn't have to because Roberto was probably already telling him..

"I have to leave," I said, draining the second bottle and starting to rise.

She reached out and took my hand very lightly. I tried not to pull away.

"Don't run, Sookie. It kills me when I feel how you feel. Because you know I still feel you. I know how you've been thinking. And I just can't leave you alone when you're thinking that way. We can take as long as you want to sort things out, but don't leave me behind. If you go, I'll go with you. If anything happened to you I couldn't bear it. Don't make me say it again. You know what I mean."

I looked at her and swallowed hard, looking away. She really meant it. Sure she'd been sent by Eric, but what she was saying was heartfelt. She meant it enough to put herself out there for me to see, which for Pam was not an easy thing. My eyes filled with tears. She really _was_ my lifeline, that slender thread keeping me going. And she knew it. She was my proof that you could not just be happy, but vibrantly so, in this form. Pam was emotionally guarded but I had to say that she seemed to _enjoy_ being vampire more than anyone I'd ever met. And ironically I knew her enjoyment was in large measure because Eric had been her sire. She'd told me as much months before. She put her arm around me very lightly and kissed my temple. I winced, but she made a soothing sound.

"Shhhhhhh. Please Sookie," she whispered, her face pressed against my hair. "We have to find a way to make this work out. You have to promise me. Don't run, my friend."

She was such a good friend. Probably the best I'd ever had in my entire life. She always was there for me and she was never afraid to call it as she saw it.

Julian startled me. I didn't even hear him or feel him approach. Well that was a bad sign of how emotionally distracted I was.

"Sookie, Roberto sent me down with this. And Liesel says hi," said Julian. He looked at Pam and then at me and he seemed very puzzled. He handed me an envelope and nodded to me then looked away as if he was trying to preserve my privacy. "She would like you to call her."

I accepted the envelope from him, nodding but not looking up at him since I was basically crying. I just nodded looking away from him and down at the bar.

"Thanks, Jules. Tell Liesel I said hi back. I don't have my phone so I can't call right now."

After he departed, I cautiously opened the envelope and found a handwritten letter and a keycard.

* * *

_Sookie,_

_I really don't know exactly where you were but I have heard you were in Banff. I have also heard that the Sheriff in southern Alberta is now on your tail for Eric, so you shouldn't go back there. I don't know what has happened between you and Eric, but I do know that you appear to need some time. Please accept accommodations at the Bellagio, as a neutral place to regroup. Your room number is 1025. You can work any days you wish this month. No rush. I'll continue to cover the cost of the room as long as you need it. Just try to rest, to relax. If you want to talk, Liesel and I will be happy to have your company._

_Please remember that no matter where you find yourself, you will always have friends in us._

_With warmest regards,_

_Roberto_

* * *

Another tear ran down my face and Pam tried to soothe me. I tried not to recoil at her touch. She growled at Adriana when she came over to see if everything was okay. I thought about what a very bad vampire I made. I had always been a crier and being dead had not improved things in the least. Wow, what a powerful and superior vampire I was turning out to be, I thought sarcastically to myself. Doing justice to Eric and Pam's tutelage…

Pam read Roberto's letter. "Sookie, let's take him up on it and go to the Bellagio. We can go to the room and just relax and watch movies and spend time together. Why not give it a try? To just rest. I want you to just relax for a while. To just spend time together. But you need more blood first. You are so pale and wan."

She stroked my cheek delicately and I turned to her. I nodded my agreement. I had been so worn down by my depression and I felt so much better just being with her. She ordered four bottles of True Blood O negative and put the total on her own credit card. When we were done, she took my hand very gingerly and we went upstairs to a room she had in the hotel to gather some of her things and clothes and toiletries she'd brought for me. Then we left the Aztec Nights, and walked up the road to the Bellagio. It was a nice long walk and the evening air was cool. Even though it was still early, we went up to the room and she ordered another two bottles of True Blood for me, and ordered a pay per view movie on TV. We lay in the bed in front of the TV, watching the movie _Underworld: Vampire Revolution _and waiting for room service. We didn't talk. She just held my hand gently. The only comment she made the rest of the night, shaking her head, was "Silly goose of a girl running away from me… And I've been learning so many lawyer jokes just for _you_."


	9. Chapter 9

**IX.**

Pam and I walked slowly, window-shopping at the Via Bellagio shops. I was more put together than I'd been in days, feeling clean, well dressed, and she'd done my makeup, hair and nails in an attempt to make me feel better. As we walked, she skillfully tried to sound me out on the subject of the night I woke. She seemed to understand that I had been on a kind of continuous sensory overload since I'd turned. She was really sympathetic about it. What she seemed to dispute was my take on Eric's reaction, although she certainly could hurl a load of abuse on his overall manner that night. Words such as insensitive, pushy and idiot were prominent in her take on that night.

She laughed when I described getting out of my office by teleporting away to my house in Bon Temps only to find I couldn't cross the portal. She likened it to the irony of finding water in the desert that turned out to be a saltwater pool. But she gasped when I told her what Bill had done in Bon Temps, grabbing me and in the process scratching me hard enough to break my skin and really make me bleed. She had always thought Bill pretty uncouth. She told me that really, if I had any residual regard for him, that I had better leave that part out or Eric would likely do something to him because of his hurting me, even if it was by accident. He'd even been making threats to Roberto, which was rather amazing since it was not really Eric's style to start throwing out threats. What on earth was he threatening Roberto for, I wondered? Roberto certainly had shown no inclinations toward wishing me any harm. Eric just wanted me back home, safe and _happy_ according to Pam. I was skeptical. If he'd wanted me so happy, hurting me right after he turned me was not a very solid plan.

"Sookie, you were very confused that night. Has it occurred to you that you could have misinterpreted what Eric was thinking, his reactions, his actions with you?"

"You mean, did I misinterpret the fact that I told him not once but twice that he was hurting me and he went on doing it? No, Pam, that thought didn't occur to me. _Because he was hurting me. _He was hateful. He was angry. And I want no part of it. That part of the self-preservation thing is working just fine, even if the feeding part is way off kilter. I have no intention of putting myself in a position where anyone is going to hurt me in order to control me. I won't trust someone who knowingly hurts me, Pam. That's not going to happen. Stuff like that's already happened to me enough in my life. I'm not taking more of it. And I'm certainly not taking it from Eric."

Pam paused in front of the Hermes storefront and looked at our reflection. Tilting her head to the side, she asked quietly,

"Did it ever occur to you that the hatred you felt might be self-hatred? Because I can tell you, what I sense from him is his immense regret that he pressed you into being turned and that it was going so bloody badly. I've known Eric for a hundred and fifty years, Sookie. He was afraid that night. And I've never really seen Eric _afraid_ of anything." She turned to me and looked me in the eye. "_Ever_. But he was afraid that he had really harmed you. If you believe you saw hatred in him, it was self-hatred because he's been selfish enough to want to keep you with him no matter what the cost. He wanted it for years. At any cost. In the hours after you rose, he began to see that it really was possible to have the cost be too high. A vampire with no drive to feed is a weak vampire that dies easily. It's quite simple. He killed you, made you, and then realized you might still die anyway? And he had told you it would all be fine, that this was a great thing to do? It was probably little more irony than Eric could absorb. Then, to top it all off, you go teleporting all over the place and there's no way he can catch you or figure out where you are. Imagine it. As bad as it was for you, imagine how it was for Eric. Mister 'I know exactly how it's going to be'. He was _wrong_, Sookie. He was _so_ wrong. Eric hates being wrong and he was spectacularly wrong about having it all under control. You don't answer his call, you can get away if you don't like what he's doing, and you don't wake hungry and needy, not even when you're brand new. You're the thing he loves most, and what he is _least_ able to deal with: not being in control. But still, he loves you, Sookie. And I can tell you Eric would _never_ knowingly harm you. He's really beaten himself up over this. I truly believe he did not understand that he was hurting you. He was so focused on figuring it all out that he missed that part. He brushed aside your statements and was just trying to figure out how you got into the office and why you left the kitchen after only that third glass of blood. He did not_ intend_ to harm you."

I walked on, not commenting. Could it be true that some of the anger and all of the hatred I felt were really _self_-directed? Why hadn't he _listened_ to me? I had tried to tell them several times that I didn't start out like they did- all human- and thus I couldn't be expected to be the same kind of vampire. It seemed like such a simple thing to grasp. But I still thought Pam was wrong. Eric had been mad at me. No matter how confused I was that night, I was certain of that.

"Pam, while I know you may genuinely believe what you're saying, I really don't know that I trust that Eric's feelings were really directed only toward himself. I felt his anger directed at _me_. He was in _my_ head, shouting at _me._"

She paused in front of Chanel and shook her head. She gently picked up my hand,

"Sookie. Promise me that you'll at least consider coming home? Or that you'll listen to him if he comes to talk to you. Please?"

Her touch wasn't as painful anymore. I wondered idly if maybe my body just had to get used to being like this, or if it had to get used to the energy of each individual person. That would certainly be laborious if it was the latter.

"So Eric basically sent you here, then, right? You're… keeping an eye on me? Keeping Roberto away from me? _What the hell_?" What was his deal with Roberto? Threats and Pam keeping me away from him? Did he think Roberto was trying to abduct me or something? Geez.

She bit her lip. "I was glad to come. I was so worried about you, Sookie. You really can't imagine. But yes, he sent me here to keep you safe. Forget the last part. You know how Eric is… Just think of it as my being here to keep you safe. To cajole you into a better state of mind."

"He sent you here to sweet talk me into talking to him, you mean." I pulled my hand away from her. I was cynical enough to know that Pam was there partly because of her own feelings and partly because Eric told her to "secure" things. Of course, she didn't really have a choice in the last part.

"Sookie, if you see Eric, then you can tell yourself what his intentions were, right? You can just read him and you can _see_ whether he's angry at you. So if he came here, and you talked to him, you might find that everything is really fine. That perhaps you just weren't yourself that night and that he could have handled things more skillfully and is sorry that he didn't. You can explain to him about how it feels to you and he _will_ listen now. Really he will."

I paused for a second and then realized that when I'd read her thoughts moments before that I started in the middle and had skipped the prologue. _Eric was already here_. She just didn't know how to tell me because she was afraid I'd flip out and run.

"Oh great, Pam. Just _great._ He's already here, isn't he? We're just walking around killing time so that he can make his plans. What is he doing? Talking to Roberto?" I looked at her and shook my head. "I know that you thought it was the right thing to do, but it was dishonest of you not to tell me flat out, Pam."

"Sookie, please just talk to Eric. I'm telling you as your friend, not as Eric's child, that you have totally misinterpreted his intentions. And he knows he hurt you and regrets it terribly. Honestly, if I were your sire, I doubt I'd have been any better. You came out odd, and we weren't prepared for that. We didn't realize what was going on. We fucked up."

"_You_ realized. _You_ listened to me. _You_ tried to get him to stop and he pushed you into a wall. I may have been out of it, Pam, but I'm not stupid. He was angry because I didn't do what he wanted or behave as I was expected to behave. You know the last time when I felt like that, Pam? With Dieter Jaeger. Remember him? Oh, don't look at me like that. Trust me. _Anger._ I'm a telepath, right? That's what I felt and what I saw. So yes, _I ran_. You bet I did. If I tell someone who loves me that he's hurting me and he's more interested in finding out why I won't do what he wants than in _not_ hurting me, I have a serious problem with that. Back to the self-preservation thing again."

She was silent on that point, which to my mind meant that she really couldn't argue with what I was saying.

"Look it's almost 10 pm and I'm going to head to the casino. I sit up on the ledges on the side walls. I promise I won't leave without you, okay? I need to catch the end of the evening shift and three hours of the night shift. I really need to get this stuff out of the way. I'll see you later, keep the keycard for the room, okay? We can connect later." I paused for a moment and then finally said what was foremost in my mind. "And Pam, just tell him to leave me alone. Please. I really need to work. Working makes me feel better. It's helping me tune in and focus. Working makes me feel like me again and right now I need to feel positive about something."

With that, I popped over to the casino onto ledge of the west wall and sank into my shadows. I'd work my four hours and then have to decide what to do about Eric and whether I needed to leave again right away. But where could I go? Maybe Pam was right and I should just talk to him. Part of me had softened in the past few days and thought that maybe I'd been completely irrational in my reactions to that night, just like my grandfather was trying to convince me I was. Another part of me remembered what it felt like to have him trying to control my mind and wanted to run for the hills. But I'd have to think of all that later. Now I had to focus my attention on observing, focus on my job.

I sat down on the ledge in the corner and leaned against the southwest wall and let the voices below just filter through my mind. I was finally starting to get used to the cacophony of noises that plowed through my ears now, not unlike standing near the tracks while a freight train roared by. I tried to filter away all the mechanical sounds and just listen to 'voices'. The amount of garbage in your average gambler's mind was really something. Endless justifications and bargaining about how the next time they'd get it all back or they hadn't really lost that much or that the odds were in their favor. I tried to filter through all that as well. I was trying to listen for other voices that were thinking thoughts that differed from the general trend. Usually, I tried to focus on staff, because they had proven the most common source of real problems in the casino. Eventually though, after about half an hour, I caught the thoughts of a man thinking about 'scouting around' and he started thinking about the actual structure of the building and the columns that helped support the high ceiling. But he wasn't an employee or even some consultant. It was an odd thing for someone to be thinking while out at a casino, I said to myself. This was a voice I chose to follow. I locked onto his voice, closed my eyes, rested my chin on my knee and listened as he mentally analyzed stress points that could be created by damaging the weight bearing columns. I listened to him for a good ten minutes with growing alarm until I was sure the guy was seriously bad news. Suddenly however, I was jarred by a rush of familiar energy. My eyes flew open and I found Eric, also dressed all in black, standing on the ledge nearby, looking down at me intently. Without saying a word he sat down cross-legged about a meter away from me. Great. Just great. _Impeccable _timing. I held up my hand.

"Not _now_," I hissed. I tried to shut him out and away from my mind. I could see Hubert standing guard below us, in his favorite guise of a six foot tall, paunchy middle aged man wearing glasses. Hubert was actually even bigger than Rico and really, to my mind, much scarier. Interesting that he'd brought Hubert rather than Rico, I thought to myself. Hubert was the big gun… But back to the business at hand…

I rested my chin back on my knee and I closed me eyes again as I tried to lock back onto the man's voice but I now couldn't find him. I opened my eyes and turned to look out at the floor and searched, trying to match the thought signature I'd heard with a person. It was a jumble of voices in a sea of noise. It took every ounce of concentration to find him again. Eric's presence made it harder for me to concentrate. It felt like trying to hear your cell phone ring during a rock concert. I finally caught up with the man's thoughts again, then with his actual voice and then I zeroed in visually on the man. A medium height, stocky built man with light brown hair. He was now talking to someone else down on the casino floor. About a _plan_? Wow. I was not liking this one bit. I popped down near them and shadowed them, literally veiling myself in shadows as I kept up with their slow pace while they moved around the large room. The second man was a Fellowship member and he kept asking the Lord to keep him safe while he was in this vampire-made den of iniquity.

There was only one reason I could envision analyzing those columns that supported the ceiling of the vast casino. That would be to eliminate them, as in bombing the casino and collapsing the hotel above the casino. The first man was an engineer. I tried to quickly think of what options were available. All of the people that I had caught over the years had been referred to law enforcement. But they had all committed crimes. These two, in contrast, were _planning_ one. It wasn't the type of crime where we could just let it evolve and catch them red-handed. This wasn't money, it was lives. The Fellowship was still going after supernaturals and had kept up a steady campaign of terror attacks, now even going after the Fae. A vampire-owned and run casino would be a major target. It would incite immense fear about going to any vampire-owned establishment here, or maybe even nationwide. It would be a disaster. And if they were using an engineer it seemed to me to indicate that they could possibly pull it off.

I tried to buck myself up in order to seem chipper and vivacious to them. I even unbuttoned my shirt another button and then I came out of the shadows and started talking to them. I smiled a lot and tried being flirtatious and asked the engineer to buy me a drink. He was delighted. They were so focused on my 'assets' that I think they really didn't pay attention to the fact that I was a vampire. We started walking toward the bar in the center of the casino. Adriana was working this bar tonight and as we sat down I beamed the thought _Call security_ as strongly into her head as I could. She turned and stared at me, puzzled. _Call security Adriana. NOW._ She took our orders and smiled and nodded when I ordered a gin and tonic, which she knew I could not drink. She got it that something was very wrong.

Their names were Chris and John. Chris was the engineer. I stealthily slid into the mind of John, the Fellowship guy, and easily glamoured him into silence while he looked at me. Then I started working on the engineer, who was made of slightly tougher stuff. I didn't want him zoned out, because I needed him to spill the beans about what they were really up to and most importantly _when_ they were planning to do it. The only thing that I could think of doing was to glamour both men into feeling compelled to tell the truth about what they were planning. To whomever asked them. And further, to compel them not to tell their cohorts yet that they had been discovered. I didn't like the idea of glamouring people into doing things against their will, but could justify it because clearly they were the ones planning something heinous.

After smiling at Chris and capturing his full attention, I slowly asked the engineer all about his day job at a big local construction company while I pretended to nurse my drink. His best friend Troy was a demolitions expert. My, my, they disliked vampires, though I still wasn't sure why, especially considering what he'd like to be doing with me. Did he even know what a vampire really looked like I wondered? Maybe he just wasn't all that attentive? I thought the fact they hadn't noticed that _I_ was a vampire was quite funny. Really, I understood some of Pam's penchant for playing with humans in that moment. But I had to try to stretch out his interest until the troops arrived. I continued to banter flirtatiously with him for about another five minutes.

Joey, Frank and Pedro showed up dressed plainclothes.

"Sookie, I got a call that you needed some assistance," Joey said in a low voice, leaning in next to me reassuringly.

"Joey, this is Chris and that's his friend John. Chris, could you please tell Joey about what you and John and Troy are planning to do here in the casino?" I smiled at Chris vivaciously.

Chris smiled at Joey and said, "We're going to bomb this casino." The smile suddenly left his face and he looked slightly confused and then panicked.

I prompted him to continue. "And what did you say Troy does?"

He looked at me and said quietly, "He's a demolitions expert. He blows up buildings like the old Stardust or the Dunes." He shifted uneasily. I could see he was wondering why he was telling us this stuff. I just smiled at him.

Joey looked at me rather incredulously. He took out his radio and called for backup in some code I didn't even recognize and I'd worked there for eight years.

"And Chris," I continued, "Whenabouts are you planning to do this whole bombing thing?" I tried to sound happy and chipper about it.

"Halloween. There's a big party here on Halloween. It'll be really crowded with sinners." He looked over at me like he was _finally_ starting to catch onto the fact that I was not quite what I seemed.

"And now where do you guys meet up to plan all this?" I asked with a smile.

"We talk sometimes at the Chevy's off of Summerlin. But most of the planning has been at University Baptist in one of their meeting rooms. I think their minister is kind of getting suspicious of us, though."

"And why would that be?" I asked, still almost flirtatiously.

"He doesn't like the Fellowship. I think he's got the idea we're a Fellowship cell. We're looking for another place to meet already." He swallowed hard and looked at me almost coldly now.

I touched Chris' arm and projected the thought deep in his mind… _You just keep on talking no matter what they ask you about your plan. Tell the truth. Just remember, the truth will set you free, right?_ _Book of John? But don't tell your friends we know yet. Remember that._

I noticed in passing that touching him was so much less intense than, say, touching Pam. Humans were definitely easier. Maybe it was magic that I felt when I got these sensations from vampires? Was it different with the Fae, like Claudine or Rico, and with Weres like Emily and Edwin? I'd have to find out about that. Chris was so pleasantly warm. I felt just the edge of hunger. I bet if I was a _normal_ vampire, I'd be ready to feast on him, I thought to myself. Instead, I just got up from my seat and took John's hand and planted pretty much the same idea in his mind. Then I turned to Joey and his colleagues and said,

"Just keep asking them about what you want to know about their plans. They just seem compelled to tell the truth about their plan, don't you Chris? John?"

The security guys looked at me incredulously and Joey burst out laughing. "Sookie, can you come over and have a go at my teenage daughter?"

"Sorry, Joey. I think I'm kind of drawing the line for anything less than terrorism." I chuckled to them and started to walk away.

Chris reached out and stopped me from leaving and said, "What are you? Really? How did you know what I was thinking about? Are you a… _vampire_?"

Joey almost lost it. I chuckled at the look on his face as he strained not to burst out laughing.

"Well, Chris, I'm sorry to tell you that there are even _worse_ things in this world than vampires." I'd just let him stew on that thought. And then, standing right there, I disappeared, popping back onto the ledge about a meter away from Eric. That probably would scare the hell out of Chris. He'd not be likely to see another vampire just disappearing that way. In fact, it might make any story he'd tell about vampires tricking him into talking all but laughable. Vampires were fast but they didn't just poof like fairies usually. I doubted the police would think he was serious. They might think he'd seen a fairy, but here, in a vampire-run casino with vampires working the casino floor? Not likely. And I knew Roberto's security people weren't going to help him on that account. I saw a group of six men escorting the Chris and John away as I settled down where I had been sitting before.

"What was that all about?" Eric asked quietly. He did not sound too thrilled. I knew seeing me sit down at a bar and flirt with two men was probably not quite Eric's thing no matter how upset we were with each other.

"Seems like they're part of a Fellowship plot to bomb the casino and hotel. I glamoured them into feeling compelled to tell the truth about anything anyone asked them about it. Seems to be working."

Eric stared out at the casino floor while I explained but then he turned to me and smiled a bit.

"Clever. _Very_ clever," he said softly. "Not surprisingly, you make a very clever vampire."

"Except for the part about not coming when I'm called, not wanting to be controlled and not being hungry enough to bite a 13 year old or my great-grandfather. Clever, other than my multiple defects, in other words." Pam had told me that Eric and Niall had been surprised that I hadn't gone after Hunter, or especially after Niall himself, the second night I rose.

"Niall says not feeding on children and family just makes you an evolutionary advance," he said with another smile. "After looking at you in action, I might be inclined to agree with him. Except for the part where you leave your husband and family in the dust without any explanation. That seems rather _un_evolved."

"You needed an explanation? Really? Well that's amazing. I was sure you'd be clever enough to figure out why I left. It seemed abundantly obvious to me. And to Pam. I really would have thought she'd fill you in on it if you still lacked clarity on the issue."

Eric didn't flinch outwardly, but even though I was making every effort to stay out of his head, I got crashing waves of frustration from him. Yes, I was _still_ upset. I felt a dull ache ring through my head. Eric was not happy with my cutting manner. It set him on edge. But, nevertheless, he seemed determined to move forward.

"Sookie, I was not angry at you. I was not…"

"_Liar_."

He turned to me and stared at me wide-eyed. I had never called Eric a liar, or really ever thought him one, other than about trivial things like sucking out bullets or such, in the ten years I'd known him. Until now.

"That's a big fat lie, Eric. You were _very_ angry at me. You were angry I wasn't doing what you wanted. That I wasn't like a 'regular' new vampire. And you completely disregarded the fact that I said you were hurting me not once, but twice. Hurting my _mind_. The last individual who treated me that way was Dieter. You hurt me physically and mentally because _you just wouldn't listen_. You always expect me to listen to you but you weren't listening to me and you didn't give a damn about what I was telling you. It was all about your little fact-finding mission and wanting control over me. You wanted to _control_ me and make me be the way you thought a new vampire should be. And after that you expect me to trust you? As I said to Pam, that's one aspect of the self-preservation instinct that I've got down pat. Don't trust people that hurt you."

An older lady on the floor near the slot machines had things drop out of her bag when she rose from her chair. I popped down deftly in the crowd to pick up the items and caught up with her and handed them to her. I was getting a little bit better at not leaving that trail. I smiled without showing my teeth. After she turned away I faded into shadow and then popped back up to my perch.

Eric said quietly, "I have to say that's very cool."

"It's actually the one thing that makes me hungry. Very hungry, if I do it enough."

"Still only on bottled blood?"

"Yes," I said, looking away. "It's disgusting. I told Niall it's a wonder anybody mainstreams if that's their only option."

"So have real blood from a donor."

"I don't want to."

"Still punishing yourself?"

I turned to look at him. "What could I possibly have to punish myself for Eric?"

"Agreeing to be turned?" he said looking directly at me.

Well, to his credit he wasn't beating around the bush with how upset I was, now was he? And he wasn't neglecting my being angry at myself in addition to him. I turned away from him and kept my eyes on the floor below with all the milling people. My insides, such as they were, just felt twisted at his words. I _was_ angry at myself. It was true. How many times in the past few days had I felt that I had made the wrong choice and ruined my life or more aptly, my existence, and now I was pretty much stuck. But I'd never planned on having real blood, really. I only planned to stay with Eric. So far that part wasn't going very well.

"I wanted to stay with you. I just didn't know the cost would be so high," I said finally, almost wincing at the words.

"It's only as high as you make it, Lover. You know, you really look ashen. You need to feed. Let's get something for you to drink. Okay?" he offered me his hand. I looked away.

"I'll go to the bar and bring something back. I'm already a day behind because of Pam showing up. I ended up being a total mess and didn't work yesterday at all."

Having Pam show up had potentially kept me from hurting myself or even thinking about it. She had buoyed me and kept me safe. Sending Pam had been a good move. In fact, for the moment, I was feeling considerably better about things. I felt useful. Being a vampire had helped resolve a serious problem for the people living and working here. I really doubted I'd have been able to catch that engineer so readily had I not been so acute with my 'hearing'. But I also wondered if I'd have been as confident in handling them if I couldn't glamour them as I had. So having Pam here had definitely helped. But, if I was honest with myself, I had to admit that I also felt better being around Eric. This made me more than a little confused. I hadn't wanted to see him but now that I was with him, I felt even better than being with Pam. I felt a rush of energy just admitting that point to myself.

I popped down to the bar, startling Adriana who, of course, hadn't seen me coming. I ordered two True Bloods and told her to run a tab. She told me that Roberto had told everyone that I still drank for free and asked me with a smile if I wanted Royalty Blended instead. I declined, rather to her amazement. I took the warmed bottles and popped back onto the ledge and put one near Eric's hand. His long legs now dangled over the ledge at the knee. Then I realized he'd stealthily moved closer to where I'd been sitting. I popped out to his other side, so that I had more room and wasn't crowded into the corner. I downed my bottle in no time. He simply handed me the bottle I'd gotten for him, which was still warm.

"Not hungry?" I asked.

"Real blood around 9 pm."

"Was she attractive?" I asked, not even understanding why I'd have any right to be asking, considering I'd basically walked out on him. I was mad at myself the moment the words left my mouth.

"_He_ was not my type at all," he said with a smile. Possessiveness always pleased Eric to no end.

"I guess it pays to be choosier, then." I drank down a good fraction of the second bottle with wrinkled nose.

"As previously agreed, I chose him quite carefully," he said, chuckling. "He was short, plump and hairy. Plus, of course, he was a man. Just _so_ appealing," he said quietly. Eric had told me that in the distant past, after he was turned, that his sire had abused him sexually for quite some time and men were definitely not an interest, if at all possible to avoid such situations. (It put a serious spin on what he was willing to put up with in Jackson long ago to help protect me and rescue Bill.) The complete lack of interest in men formed the basis of his offer to me that if I was turned that he was only going to take blood from male donors unless we decided otherwise. So he was making sure I knew he was keeping his word, even if I had taken off.

"MmmHmmmm. Trying to work while talking is really not going well," I said, ignoring his remark. The floor sounded like a background buzz with Eric talking to me. He was all I could hear, all I could feel. And whenever I looked at him, whatever was where my heart used to beat felt a huge tug. It would be impossible to really focus on whatever was going on below me with him there. Eric looked away at my words. He didn't like it that I didn't want to talk to him.

"Well, we need to talk Lover, and this is the only place I've been able to catch up with you. You've been rather hard to locate, so I'm not keen on leaving. Where did you stay in Banff? During the day, I mean. Where did you stay?"

"Madeleine Hauff, 1896 to 1935. Died of tuberculosis, I think." I finished the second bottle. Disgusting, but I felt more energetic. Four bottles down for the night.

He turned and looked at me aghast. "You slept in a _coffin_? Why? Why would you do that, Sookie?" I felt him absolutely cringe at the thought of _me_ sleeping in a coffin. That was rather ironic, considering he'd probably spent many centuries doing just such a thing.

"What's so special about me? It was an aboveground stone coffin and much better than being buried. If Pam's done it, why not me? I couldn't stay in a hotel, you'd have found me right away. Her bones were damaged, her ribs, one femur. I read about tuberculosis in the bones a long time ago in a historical novel about St. Bernadette. I think Madeleine must have had TB and I guess it killed her, most likely. No one had visited her grave in many years. It was very weedy and ill-kempt. It was in a family plot. Lots of Hauffs."

"There was certainly no need for you to do that. What if I had found you? So what? I was looking for you because I was worried about you, Sookie. I may have been upset when you left but I was upset because I was worried. And I didn't want you to be on your own, definitely not in such a fashion."

"Well, I guess you should have thought of that before you went grabbing me in the electric vise-grip and bludgeoning my mind with yours," I replied caustically. "It kind of inclines one to getting as far away as possible and being rather hard to find."

He was silent for a while, made a grimace and then finally he said, "You're right. I screwed up. I didn't listen. I was alarmed because you didn't want to feed, because you were so calm and contained. I've never seen anything like it. I've turned enough people and seen enough newly turned to know there was something… different. I thought I finally had what I had wanted for years and it was all going wrong. Then you disappeared while Pam was watching you and you didn't respond when I summoned you. You brushed the call away like it was dust on your desk. I've just never seen anything like it. I didn't like it. I was angry at everything. At the entire situation but not at _you_, specifically. I'm sure you remember that I turned you because I love you, right? I did _not_ intend to hurt you. I was very upset and handled things badly. If I was rough with you, I'm very sorry. I was trying to figure out what was going on and by the time it occurred to me how you got to your office through a locked door, you were already gone again and I had no idea where you went. Then I got that call from Bill. What did he do to you? He apologized to me but wouldn't say what happened. He lost you twice. What did he do to make you leave the first time?"

"He grabbed my arm. It was painful. Being touched is still sometimes very painful. It seems like I have to get used to the person's touch. At least for vampires. It's like an electric buzz or shock. Sometimes it really hurts."

Eric turned to me with narrowed eyes and said, "_Now_ who's lying? What did Bill really do? I don't need any bond to read your expression or your voice and see when you're leaving out something, Lover."

He paused waiting for me to reply. But I said nothing. I really had to get better at being vampire inscrutable, I thought to myself.

"Did Bill do something that hurt you? Sookie?"

Terrific. The last thing I'd need would be Eric going after Bill. I was sure I could convince him that Bill hadn't intentionally hurt me. And that I'd be totally pissed with him if he did anything to Bill. I'd already convinced myself it was unintentional after talking to Pam about it. But that line of thought led me down a path I didn't want to face. That sometimes people hurt you without intending to do so and you just have to let it go even if it really upset you. Because I had to say, looking at Eric, I could plainly see that Pam was right. Eric had not _intended_ me to hurt me anymore than Bill had. My head just reeled with confusion. What the hell had I been thinking these past few days? I was throwing away ten years of evidence that he had never intended me harm because of _one_ admittedly really bad moment? In listening to his saying that he was angry at everything and not me specifically, I could see that he was telling me the truth. But in my hypersensitive state I'd taken it all very personally. Of course, what flooded through me that night in my office had been too painful to analyze, and I had been very confused and afraid. And quite possibly very irrational, just as my grandfather had implied when he caught up with me in Banff.

"Sookie, did Bill _hurt_ you? Yes or no?" he pressed.

Just then we saw Roberto walk into the casino from the North door. He glanced at the east then west wall, quickly sighting us. He made his way through the crowded floor toward the west wall, trailed now by three bodyguards, one at his side and two behind. He walked to just below where Eric and I were sitting and smiled broadly up directly at me and bowed with a flourish. I couldn't help but smile. But I felt Eric go stiff and fill with anger. He'd moved right to my side as soon as Roberto had entered the casino and he'd carefully put his arm just around my back, without truly touching me. Clearly staking his claim, no matter what our problems were, I thought to myself. Clearly listening to the fact that sometimes being touched hurt. With his sitting so close to me, I felt his anger at Roberto really potently. What could have Roberto said or done to earn that anger, I wondered? Even with that stuff that night in the elevator, Roberto had never really said or done anything inappropriate. It seemed like such an overreaction but that wasn't like Eric. Eric clearly thought that Roberto posed a threat somehow.

Without looking at Eric, I said as quietly as I could, "Would you just cut it out already? I'm going down there and if you do, you had better not be rude to him. Because he's supposed to be our friend, your ally and I like working for him."

"As if I'd be rude. Like I'd want him to think I felt he was a threat to my interests?" he said in the lowest possible voice. He had turned to me and had his lips right next to my ear.

"I already heard about it from Pam, Mr. Spewing Threats," I said in a very low voice.

"No need for threats now that I'm _with_ you," he said softly in my ear. "He wouldn't dare." His voice so close to me gave me shivers and I was sure he knew I shivered.

I gave him a look and said in a whisper, "With all due respect Eric, he wouldn't dare, period. If I quit, he has to use Barry and it seems like that prospect doesn't exactly thrill him."

"Just remember you're mine. Even when we both act badly. Totally and completely _mine_."

I intensified the look and shook my head while uttering a low "Ohhhh." I had acted badly? Since when had _I _acted badly in this situation? _Major_ pissing me off points. I blew some loose strands of hair away from Eric's face. He laughed. It was an old game.

Roberto looked up at us somewhat puzzled during this exchange, which I wondered if he could hear. It was pretty noisy down there, though. Finally, I popped down, with my two empty bottles. Eric floated down and stood right behind me, very close, but not touching me. Hubert stood near by us. I handed the bottles to a cocktail waitress passing by us with a tray of empty glasses. She looked at all the vampires and scooted away. I bowed my head to Roberto.

"Sookie, enough with _that_. I simply can't thank you enough. How on earth did you catch them?" said Roberto looking at me with eyes that sparkled and further emphasized his wide smile. I could feel Eric glaring at him from behind me.

"It was luck. Pure luck. He was thinking about creating stress points in the ceiling by taking out some of the columns."

"And you glamoured them? What did you tell them? Everything the police ask them about they spew out answers and look horrified that they're saying it."

"I just compelled them to answer truthfully any questions asked of them about what the plot was, and _not_ to tell their cohorts that the plot had been discovered."

Roberto chuckled. "Simple but clever. The police have called in the FBI. Our official story is that security overheard something by chance. Joey's got it covered. He'll say he heard them talking to someone at the bar, which is quite the truth."

Liesel joined us with another guard and made as if to hug me. I pulled back from her and almost knocked into Eric's chest. "Don't take it personally. I'm having this problem with being extremely hypersensitive to touch." I smiled at her and said, "And I'm sorry I didn't write back or call you."

She smiled down at me and shook her head as if it didn't matter. Then she glanced up at Eric and said "Eric," with a cool, curt nod. Then she looked back at me with a warm smile. "Let's dump the foolish men and go have some real conversation. Walk with me. Such a vicious girl not even calling me. Come." She glanced around, taking in Hubert, Roberto's men and then me. "Why don't you have a bodyguard? Rob, she has no bodyguard? Why? That isn't safe."

Well, now there was an oversight… Roberto offered me his third bodyguard but really I wasn't interested.

"I don't really need a bodyguard Liesel. I don't want one. It would slow me down, too much. I'm fast enough to get away from just about any trouble. I can only take a short break. I want to finish at a reasonable hour," I said as we started to turn away. I glanced up at Roberto and bowed my head politely, then glanced back and just met Eric's eyes. His eyes shone as mine met his. He smiled at me and I felt such warmth from him. Whatever was where my heart used to beat still swelled large just looking at him. Was this the man I had thought was like Dieter almost a week ago? I smiled back almost shyly.

Liesel walked me out to the elevators and suggested going to the bar in the penthouse. She was looking really well these days. At about five foot ten inches tall, blonde haired and blue-eyed she was dressed in midnight blue. She was very thin because she had been very ill when she was turned. She was unusual because she'd been turned over age forty, a rarity among vampires for the most part. But she was still very beautiful.

"You know, I'm still working for another couple of hours, Liesel. Maybe just briefly in the lobby?" I said, thinking that I really didn't want to end up working very late.

"Oh please, you can take a real break. You've saved the hotel from being blown up for goodness sakes. Let's at the very least enjoy a good view while we talk."

"Oh, a lot of things could have stopped their plan between now and the end of the month, Liesel."

"Right. Bad detonators, perhaps? _You_ stopped their plan, Wunderkind," she said with a smile. "Accept the praise. Try to be gracious. I know it's a struggle for you, but try to make the effort."

When the elevator door closed, in spite of the fact that the bodyguard was still with us, she turned to me and asked, "So are you okay? _Really_, Sookie, are you? Rob and I are worried about you. I came to get you away in case Eric is a problem. Rob and I want to assure you that you don't have to go with him if you don't want to. Times have changed. Even for vampires. If he's not treating you well, you're staying put and Roberto and Stan will take care of things."

"I'm fine. It's kind of a private matter, Liesel. No need for Roberto and Stan to get involved."

She studied me. "You're always so self-contained, Sookie. Did he do something to hurt you? Henry Lin got Rob really worried about you, and you keep taking off and not calling me. We were very worried about you."

"I'm _fine._ I'm really sorry I didn't call. I actually don't have my cell phone with me. How's your brother. Your nieces? I heard you were visiting them the day before yesterday?" I asked as we entered the bar at the top of the Aztec Nights. Her brother's family was living in Los Angeles for a year. They were from Salzburg and she'd been very excited that they were staying in the States for an extended period.

As I glanced out the windows at the bright light emanating from the Luxor across the Strip, I had trouble blocking out her thoughts. She was so very angry at Eric. She thought he was arrogant and had been callous with me in some way. I redoubled my effort to block her thoughts out of my mind so that I could just enjoy her company. Even as a vampire, Liesel was a warm and very engaging person. I enjoyed her friendship immensely and we'd become good friends over the years. As a turned Were, I also knew she mourned the loss of her wolf and I felt somehow an even greater kinship with her because of that. We had both lost something, even if I couldn't quite put into words what it was that I had lost being turned. Currently, my thoughts were that I'd lost my ability to think rationally… After forty-five minutes I told her I really thought I should go back. I'd have to stay until around 3 am now, and I thought it was better to get a move on. I chanced the sizzle of touching her hand in parting.

When I went back inside the casino, of course, Eric was gone. I realized that I was sorry he was. I missed him. I felt totally conflicted and confused about that realization. I was having to work to remind myself that I was angry with him. Maybe that was kind of a sign?

Pam came to keep an eye on me some time later and we walked back to the Bellagio together around 4 am. We didn't talk much. I took her arm and found that I could hold onto her with little problem at this point. Maybe it was just an issue of adjusting to the individual? I still didn't fully understand all the changes in me and it had been almost a week. It was so annoying. At least I had Pam. I took comfort in that thought.

We crawled into the bed and watched TV for a while. She told me bad lawyer jokes trying to get me to laugh. I didn't really, but I felt so comforted with her there with me. I didn't ask about Eric. I felt like I just wanted to rest my mind. I went into down time well before dawn.


	10. Chapter 10

**X.**

I think the scent was what finally woke me. My brain just switched on and there it was. A muskiness that was enticingly familiar but now seemed to surround me much more strongly the moment I awoke. My sense of smell was so amplified.

I was in his arms, my head on his chest, and I had no idea at first that there was anything out of the ordinary.

Then I remembered.

I started to jerk away from him but his arms held me firmly. There was a faint buzz to his touching me, but I guess because I had been lying against him for some time, because it felt as if I had become more inured to his touch.

"You're fine," he said softly. "You don't have to run away. Relax. You're fine."

"Is this the part where you apologize?" I grumbled. I was going to give Pam a _real _piece of my mind when I caught up with her.

"You already forgave me. But I'm more than willing to apologize again and even grovel if you really need me to do so."

"When did I forgive you? I don't recall forgiving you, Eric. Was I even _awake?_"

He laughed. "When you were leaving with Liesel. That look? You'd already forgiven me by then. I know that sort of shy look. I'm very fond of that look. The look that means I totally have you and you're all soft about me."

"I sense a resurgence of insufferable self-confidence," I said, shaking my head against his chest.

Eric sighed dramatically.

"So groveling it is, then Lover… Sookie Northman, light of my life, forgive me for trying to figure out, in such a disturbing fashion, what the hell was going on with you the night you rose new and hardly fed, then vanished, multiple times. Forgive my roughness, harsh manner and complete lack of listening skills. I totally screwed up. I am prostrate over the fact that I frightened you and made you remember the evil German fairy I sliced to shreds with fine Scandinavian steel because he stole you and was vile to you. I figured out on my own that was the real problem, by the way. The whole similarity to what Dieter did? I got that. But… In the meantime… While you contemplate accepting my apologies, I forgive _you_ for thinking I would ever deliberately do anything to harm you after spending the better part of a decade _preventing_ anyone from harming you or seeking retribution if they succeeded in doing so. And I forgive you for the fact that I had to listen to your Grandfather lecturing me and endure his _incredible_ arrogance when telling me all about how he could find you when _I_ could not. And I assure you, Lover, that last one was _really hard _to bear_._"

"Eric, you really hurt me. It's not a joke. It really hurt and you really frightened me."

"I know, Lover," he whispered. "I know. And I am genuinely sorry for that, as I told you yesterday." He hugged me a little bit more tightly. "Stan told me that the hypersensitivity thing kind of happened to him, too. Unfortunately, he told me that _after_ you left. Pam caught on without needing someone to tell her. I was only focused on the hunger end of things. I don't think Stan's hypersensitivity was as severe as yours at all. And Stan was always hungry. And the fact that you're not is not healthy in my eyes. Even now, look at you. You don't wake ravenous. This is just not normal."

"You don't wake up ravenous. Sometimes you've been awake hours before feeding."

"Sookie, I've been doing this for about 1100 years. You require much, much more blood than I do. You should be starving almost to the point of being out of control when you're a week old."

"Thalia's older than you are and she wakes early because she's so hungry. I've _seen it_. And she's much smaller than you are. Maybe everybody is just different, Eric. And you keep ignoring the fact that I wasn't completely human. Have you seen what the Fae eat? I have, and it's not like their appetites are the same as a humans at all. For the record, I'm getting by just fine. Except for the fact that I going to tell Pam off for letting you in the room without my knowledge and agreement."

"It would be unfair of you to blame her. I already sent her home to protect her from your wrath. And because she missed Tan, of whom she is so excessively fond. Anyway, _she_ has to do what I tell her to do, so cut her some slack, okay?"

"Yeah, well, I'm not giving her any slack. I'm mad even if she has to do what you tell her. Lately, it seems I'm big on defiance. So going back to what you said yesterday, about how I can just tune you out sometimes? It's like before, with not being glamoured? The same kind of thing?"

"Maybe it is like not being glamoured. I really don't know. Why can you teleport? It's just you, your gift," he said shrugging his shoulders. "As Pam says, you are unique."

Suddenly, I started laughing and then I couldn't stop. It was the first time I'd really laughed since being turned. I actually, in spite of all odds, felt really happy lying there next to him. It was the happiest I'd been since… being human.

"What's so funny?" asked Eric.

"The idea that one of my 'gifts' is that I don't have to listen to you or do what you say!" I put my hand over my mouth to try to stifle my laughter a bit.

He said in a serious tone of voice, "I could still make you."

"Well, I guess you'd have to catch me first," I said with a chuckle.

"Oh _really_? Well, right now I've got you, haven't I?" he said with a slight edge to his voice.

He did have me. But not for long. I popped out of his arms, leaned against the wall on the other side of the room and pursed my lips at him, as if in a challenge. He sat up in the bed and then stood up, eyeing me with narrow eyes and a smirk on his face. He walked over to where he had his clothes draped over the back of the desk chair and turned his back to me. A blatant attempt to distract me with his oh, so attractive backside? I tensed, waiting. He moved quickly, but I popped faster. He arrived at an empty wall. After several rounds with similar results, he took his PDA out of his jacket and sat on the bed, checking his email and muttering in old Norse. I caught something that sounded like Bill Compton, nótt, which is the Norse word for night, and Fangtasia. It wouldn't be the first time he'd blamed Bill for ever having brought me into his bar that night ten years ago. Then he muttered in English that I was the stubbornest damn woman he'd ever known and that I'd been nothing but trouble for an entire decade. I let myself get distracted by his words rather than his thoughts and I laughed at him. And just then… he'd dropped the PDA and faster than I could even think, he caught me, grabbing my wrists lightly. I gasped. He was so fast that time! He looked down at me with a grin as wide as the Cheshire Cat and glowing eyes.

"Fair and square, Lover. Oh no you don't…" He leaned me into the wall, pressing lightly against me. "Don't you go popping out of my grasp. I'd 'have to catch you first' you say? Sassy woman. I was deliberately slow the first three times and you _fell_ for it. You're _such_ an easy mark, Sookie."

I looked up at him and pouted. "I guess I'll have to be more careful about being tricked, then."

He stared down at me and then smile faded. "What you need to do is _listen_, Sookie. To me. Really, you do."

That voice working its way inside my head… I dropped my eyes and shifted uncomfortably, fighting the desire to pop away from him. On top of it, the horsing around had made me feel weaker and hungry. We stood there, with his hands encircling my wrists and his pressing me against the wall for a moment. I finally looked back up at him. He still wasn't smiling.

"Sookie," he said in a low tone of voice. That slithery voice echoed inside my head, repeating my name, as well. It was quieter than it had been that first night but I still didn't like it. I stiffened.

"MmmmHmmmm," I said, starting to cringe internally, no longer meeting his gaze. I closed my eyes. It was now taking a _lot _of effort not to run.

"I am not like Dieter. I will not hurt you and I don't _want_ you to be afraid of me," he whispered to me. _Sookie_ echoed the slithery voice in my head, still softly. "I don't want you to be fearful."

"But your voice in my head scares me, Eric. It just does. I just _hate_ it and if you do it when you're mad I just can't…"

"Then when I'm mad, I won't. When I'm mad I will talk to you. I won't touch you. But you need to listen, Sookie. It is part of what we are. And you need what I can tell you. You do."

He kissed my forehead and left his lips pressed against it. He released my wrists and interlaced his fingers with mine. I felt dizzy. Popping around right after waking took energy that I just didn't have in large supply.

Eric pulled back and frowned saying abruptly, "You _really_ need to eat. You're so weak. You're practically swaying. Lover, you have to cut this out. You need to feed."

He let go of my hands and picked me up. He sat down on the bed with me in his lap, turned my back to his chest and then bit his wrist and pressed it to my lips. My nostrils flared and, even though I hesitated, finally the blood won. I sucked until he pulled his wrist away from me. Then he pushed my hair away from my neck, tightened his arm around my waist and bit me drawing just a bit of blood as I gasped with pleasure. I felt a rush of warmth, and energy permeating me. I felt the wound seal almost instantly when he pulled away.

"That's more like it," he murmured, rubbing his cheek and lips against my ear. "_Not _feeling you does _not_ feel good, Lover. This is much better. Don't mess with it? Try to just leave it as it is now?"

I just leaned back against him, lost in the vibrant sensation of warmth that filled me. He reached over and picked up the phone with one hand and dialed for room service. He ordered six bottles of True Blood. Then I turned so my side was against his torso and I leaned against him. He rested his chin on the bridge of my nose. I felt… safe. After a few moments like that he bent his head lower and his hands tangled in my hair. He kissed me with slowly increasing intensity. He was very careful, as if trying to be very sure he did not hurt me. His hand stroked my breasts very gently, over my nightgown. I trembled in his arms. I felt this welling up of desire that I had buried deep inside myself.

"Tell me if I am hurting you, Lover. I'm worried I'll hurt you…"

I responded by embracing him passionately.

After we made love, he barred my way to the shower.

"I think we're leaving it very obvious about how things are between us until we leave, Lover." He said it with an evil smile.

I looked up at him and just sighed. After the recent days of no access to a shower, I was now going to be tormented by one I couldn't use? Well, there were some arguments just not worth having. We could go home after I finished work for the night and I'd do the last three days for October toward the end of the month, I said to myself.

Room service finally arrived, some 35 minutes after he'd ordered it. Eric made a snide remark about the Bellagio not being set to deal with vampire clientele, and left Hubert with the task of tipping the terrified room service waiter who looked at the big, snide vampire with awe. If only they knew that Hubert was much, much more frightening than Eric, I thought to myself. Hubert's glamour was really quite droll.

I sat on Eric's lap having four successive bottles. He encouraged my vehement complaints to my grandfather about the issue of taste as he drank the other two.

Finally, still in his arms, I looked at him and said, "So can you tell me what this garbage is you've been saying to Roberto? May I remind you I work for him? You better not mess that up, Eric. It's a great job…"

"You're endearingly naïve, Lover. I'm sure there is nothing I could _say_ to Roberto to put him off having you work for him. You just watch out for him. He's a self-deluding cerebral pri…"

I was sorry I asked.

I finally kissed him to shut him up.


	11. Chapter 11

**XI.**

**March 2015**

I still didn't understand why we were meeting at Hunter's house. Hunter had just turned 14 and in recent months I had been trying to help him work on reading vampire minds, in addition to offering general moral support. He was much better at reading vampires, or at least me, than I had been as a human. But maybe part of it was that Hunter was already very locked on reading me and so he just sort of had to pick up my signature in it's new wavelength. We'd talked about that idea quite a bit. But in any case, here it was at 1 am in the morning and we were in Hunter's room. Niall was already there, chatting with Hunter when I popped in. They got along pretty well it seemed. Even though Hunter's room was no better than it had been last fall, Niall seemed as if he really enjoyed Hunter and I knew that he had visited him fairly regularly.

After saying hello to me, Niall literally seemed to have frozen time, and Hunter, for that matter, so the two of us could discuss his plan. Once I understood what he was proposing, I flat out refused. When he asked me to bind Hunter, I thought he was crazy. First, drawing the blood of a child, even a teenager, seemed repugnant to me. Second, and really more importantly, it was illegal, which considering my proud status as a lawyer, made it out of the question. Third, as I pointed out, what was the point of a six month old vampire binding _anyone_? My blood could be superseded by just about any vampire's blood.

If he was seriously worried that someone would try to take control over Hunter, we should ask Eric, I told him. Eric didn't know, at least I didn't think he knew, that Hunter was a telepath. There were very few things that I wouldn't share with Eric but Hunter was strictly a 'need to know' issue with me. I hadn't even been too thrilled with Niall knowing. I wasn't exactly comfortable with the idea of Hunter having a blood bond at all, really. But if Niall really thought one was needed, Eric was clearly a better option than I was. I'd explain to Eric about Hunter's gift and I was sure that Eric knew me well enough to know why I'd kind of kept the information under wraps for all this time. Niall would have none of it. That was when he mentioned the _other_ part of his plan.

"It will work fine if you exchange blood with me first. Then it will supersede any possible vampire bond."

I looked at him with frank suspicion. Exchange blood with a fairy? _Why_? An exchange, a _formal_ exchange? It roused my suspicions about what Niall's plan really entailed. And besides, vampires had been having fae blood for centuries and none of them ever gained anything other than intoxication and a really bad hangover, at least if Pam was to be believed. What was the point here?

"Grandfather, if there was something to be gained by having fae blood, why is it that vampires never get more than a temporary effect from fairy blood? What you propose doesn't even make sense to me. If you worry about Hunter, you need a lasting solution. That would be Eric, not me."

"You do not understand the difference between blood taken and blood _conferred_. This would be a _gift_. A gift of magic. It would enhance your blood and be designed to give your blood a potency that perhaps even one as old as Eric does not have."

"Yeah, well, that doesn't sound like something that I'm going to do without talking to Eric first, Grandfather. It's definitely not happening today, and I don't know that it's going to happen at all. I still don't want any of us breaking the law. Hunter is under the age of consent for _anything_."

Niall looked at me and said, "This is a moral issue and deals with the need to safeguard Hadley's son. It is not about human law. There are higher laws, yes?"

"Then we should still ask Eric to do it. I'm sure if we explain it to Eric, he'll have a way to do it that is both legally acceptable to me and likely to be more binding than anything I could offer Hunter. And you're still not telling why he needs to be safeguarded. From what? If he needs to be protected, then Eric is the best bet."

"We don't need to involve Eric."

"Grandfather, I can definitely tell you I'm not doing anything without more information as to _why_ we'd need to bind Hunter, your methods and especially I'm not doing anything without talking to Eric about it. Whatever _I_ do affects Eric. I'm not making any such decision without his being fully availed of what the plan is, and without his agreeing with it."

"So he really is your sire? You need his _permission_, then?" He looked at me with an eyebrow raised.

Oh, if he was trying to bait me, bait me with my pride and independence, there was something _seriously_ wrong, I told myself. Did he actually think I would fall for that line? He was hard to read just then. But I was sure, absolutely 100% sure that he was covering something up. How could that be? The Fae can't lie. This was something very layered and twisted into what was pretty much a lie to me but still truth to him.

"No, it has nothing to do with his being my sire, Grandfather. He's really my partner, my lover. I won't contemplate doing _anything_ with blood that doesn't involve his knowledge."

Niall looked down at me with narrowed eyes. "You still share blood? I thought that was unhealthy among your kind?"

"Let's say what we do is none of your business, okay? You're always so intrusive into my private life. Now release Hunter and I'll talk to Eric about what you propose, assuming you can give me more information about _all_ of what you want to do, beyond just the obvious. You can come to talk to us both tomorrow night, okay? Now for heaven's sake would you let Hunter go so he can go to bed? He has school in the morning."

**

* * *

  
**

In the six months since I'd been turned I had adapted to life as a vampire fairly well. I was still having some tactile hypersensitivity issues at times and I still didn't liked to be touched by most people. I was very used to Eric, Pam, Rico and Claudine, but somewhat less so to others I counted as friends. Humans were a bit less of a problem. Weres, weres and the like were also not quite as intense as the vampires and Fae could be. Highly magical people were a challenge for me. Touching magical people enhanced reading them, and I thought that part of the intense sensation came from just that fact. But still, I thought I was pretty much okay. I had overcome a lot of my auditory hypersensitivity as well, and those were the two things that had really bothered me most. The keen sense of smell and sharp vision were actually pleasant, as was the greater strength. It was easy to see why vampires felt so superior. I tried not to get carried away with that idea, though. It would be counterproductive to my work, which was based on a more egalitarian view of the world that didn't quite complement the vampire worldview. But I thought I had adapted fairly well.

Looking at my adaptation to life as a vampire from Eric's perspective, however, the real problem was still the hunger issue. I was still basically living on True Blood, which had Eric very annoyed. Whenever we argued, it was always about when, how or even _if_ I chose to get blood. And there were many, many arguments. Pam had tried to forge a solution by hiring a phlebotomist to draw blood from donors. I was amazed that she even had a line up of people who _wanted_ to donate to me. Eric was not amused. His philosophy was that I needed to get over it already and be a vampire. The question in my mind was whether I would ever be the sort of vampire that Eric or anyone else expected me to be. I was… different. I played by my own rules and I was rather troubled by the fact that Eric didn't seem able to accept that. I often felt that I had to tread carefully with him. It made me feel like I had to be very reserved and I didn't like that.

In November, Stan had visited New Orleans and spent time talking to me. Stan had an odd fondness for me. I remember when I used to be really scared of Stan. But I guess I had earned his respect from all the way back in days when I went to Dallas with Bill. He always said I had moxie and still called me the Firebrand. While he might have been envious that I'd been able to keep and even expand my 'gift' he instead seemed really pleased. I think he was still hoping that Barry might agree to be turned eventually. It seemed that the slow and steady consumption of vampire blood was the key thing in Stan's mind as to how Eric had managed to help me preserve my telepathic ability. Barry was not, however interested in vampire blood or being turned. He worked for the FBI much of the time of late. Stan mentioned to me that Eric seemed rather worried that I mostly got by on True Blood. I was more than willing to admit I didn't want to bite people. I didn't even really like touching most people still, so why would I want do something as personal as bite them? Stan was later polite enough to tell Eric that I was just really neurotic about the whole business out of my earshot. However, his discussion with Eric incited an argument between Eric and me. Stan had to go and point out that what _really_ mattered was that I could actually do it when needed, as I had when I'd 'gotten shot in Tulsa'. I had not considered carefully enough that Cameron, the King of Oklahoma, and Stan were on such cordial terms as to discuss... goings on.

As Eric came stamping down the hallway to my office with Stan traipsing behind him, I seriously considered just popping out of my office. I could feel the anger preceding him. Suddenly, I got this really clearly focused apology beaming my way from Stan.

_It simply never occurred to me that he didn't know you got shot in Tulsa, Sookie! He seems… rather disturbed. How did you manage to omit that little detail?_

Well, just wonderful. I was in the middle of writing to Russell's husband Bart about a legal matter on which he wanted a second opinion and I really didn't want to leave my office. Besides, Eric would _know_ I'd just been there and skedaddled because he was mad. And that would just make it worse.

It wasn't really as bad as it sounded. Okay, maybe it _was_ as bad as it sounded, but it had turned out fine so it didn't really matter. I gotten shot protecting Jerome Lewis, the Oklahoma Were, who was going to testify in a vampire court convened by the King of Oklahoma to investigate claims that the Area 2 Sheriff in Tulsa was extorting services from him. Lewis owned a BMW car dealership and a vampire, Thomas Porter, was taking leased cars in his Sheriff's name, not paying for them and often returning them wrecked or damaged. He'd taken three already in the past six months and was trying to get a fourth to replace one he claimed Reynolds had just crashed. While all vampires loved to drive fast, not all were good drivers it seemed. I'd gone to Tulsa not long after I'd been turned to try to push the investigation of the Were's claims, which were originally made against the Area 2 Sheriff, Bobby Reynolds. Thomas Porter was the second to the Bobby Reynolds and had been for all of about nine months. From collecting information from several sources, I had come to suspect that Porter was also extorting money from other people in Area 2, and it was really an ugly mess because everyone blamed Bobby Reynolds. To me, it seemed obvious that Bobby was not the problem, since he'd been Sheriff for more than fifteen years and nothing like these incidents had ever happened in Tulsa. Jerome Lewis was the only person brave enough to step forward and complain directly to the Alliance. Cameron, the King of Oklahoma was forced to open an investigation of Bobby under the terms of the Alliance and his investigators reported not just to him, but to me as well. I didn't think Cameron thought it was Bobby either.

When I was talking to Jerome one night outside his dealership I had one of those little flashes that I guess you just get, plus I had that super acute hearing. I heard the crack of a rifle and just _knew_. I teleported right in front of Jerome and even though he was a bit bigger than I am, the bullet, intended for him, hit me. In the chest. I can officially say that being shot when you're a vampire hurts every bit as much as being shot when you're a human. The bullet working its way out is no fun either. As we lay flat on the ground, with me bleeding quite a bit, it really gave me pause for thought when I recalled all the times that Eric had gotten shot or otherwise injured protecting me when I was human. But anyway, I got shot, Jerome didn't. I lost a fair amount of blood and Jerome insisted that since I protected him, he wanted to give me blood. Considering how dizzy and weak I felt, I took him up on it. I actually bit him. Briefly. I was apprehensive not just because I'd never bitten anyone other than Eric, but because I was afraid I would start and not be able to stop. I should have known better. I'm an utter control freak. I took enough to be polite, stopped and said I could make do with True Blood for the rest later. Then I tracked down the rat bastard who shot at him and discerned that he was hired by one Thomas Porter who was the only one Jerome had ever dealt with on those BMW 7 Series cars that were getting ruined. I considered it a really successful liaison investigation that proved Bobby Reynolds innocent of any wrong-doing. Still, I knew the central point in Eric's mind would be that I had gone to Oklahoma, on my own, refusing his suggestion to take someone else with me, stubbornly insisting I was fine on my own as a two weeks old vampire, and that I'd gotten myself shot. On purpose, since I chose to take the bullet for a Were I hardly knew. And I'd 'neglected' to mention it to him. This would not be a happy revelation. Maybe I could spin it by telling him that I'd fed off the Were? Not likely. About the best I could say was that the guy who shot me was either too cheap or too dumb to be using silver bullets, a point I'd reflected on while watching the blood oozing out of my chest wound. It was, frankly, a good night to be a vampire since I'd have been killed if I'd had the same thing happen as a human. Not that I'd have gone jumping in front of the Were before I'd been turned, but now things were slightly different and the man had trusted me to try to protect him and his family so justice could prevail. Jerome was really brave and _deserved_ protection.

Eric was already not in good humor during Stan's visit because Stan was also trying to smooth over problems between Eric and Roberto. Things had not been friendly between them for more than a month after I had been turned and shown up in Vegas. Whatever words they'd had within Pam's earshot must have been sweet talk in comparison to whatever was said right before I'd left for home back in early October. I hadn't wanted to delve too deeply into their disaffection. I hit the tip of the iceberg when I caught a brief thought from Roberto later on that night I awoke in Eric's arms. Roberto didn't know right away that Eric and I were definitely still together. When he first saw me a bit later in the evening, at a slight distance, I caught a forceful wisp of a thought about how 'invaluable' I was as an asset. Then he caught Eric's scent all over me. A _fait accompli_, as they say. I immediately picked up on his disappointment. In combination with the whole elevator business, it made it very clear to me that in spite of the fact that Eric couldn't really know Roberto's exact mind on the subject of me, he had been able to guess enough to be very, very angry. I still couldn't think badly of Roberto. He was thinking like a guy, and like a vampire King, and really one couldn't blame him because that's exactly what he was. Eric wasn't quite so charitable.

Eric didn't discuss any of it with me but then he always thought I was very naïve. Really, I didn't want to get into it with him. After all, I could only confirm all his worst thoughts about how Roberto perceived me. When I went back to finish in late October, Eric sent Pam with me, even thought I'd just been in Tulsa on my own. Pam stuck to me like glue. I thought for a time that maybe Eric _did _know about my getting shot, but in the end it was obvious to me that Pam was just with me because I was in Vegas. Roberto was always very warm and pleasant to me, and even reasonably pleasant to Pam. It was easy for me to read his very evident distaste whenever Eric's name was mentioned. Liesel acted confused about what was going on though she clearly knew they had argued. She said Stan would fix it and shrugged the whole thing off. But if they had started arguing because of me, I had the definite feeling that they had moved on to arguing about other things as well. When Stan arrived in NOLA in mid-November, he chided me playfully, saying I was _such_ a lot of trouble. Roberto had told him quite honestly from his perspective that Eric had started the whole thing and that it stemmed from jealousy. He left out the part about how Eric's jealousy was, in fact, well grounded from the standpoint of how Roberto regarded me. Stan had somehow managed to grasp the truth, nonetheless. Stan was always quick to assess things and I guess he knew both Roberto and Eric, pretty well. But, although the focus of Stan's visit was really smoothing out tensions, along the way he'd succeeded in getting Eric really riled over my little investigation in Tulsa.

The door to my office swung open without so much as a knock and the doorknob left a lovely impression in the drywall when it impacted it. Six feet five inches of not very happy Viking filled the doorway.

"Can you tell me what the fuck happened to you in Tulsa?"

"_Language?_ _Manners_?_"_ I said, narrowing my eyes and shaking my head. I really was not a fan of people storming into my office cursing at me and leaving dents in my walls. "I solved a problem before it got messy and saved Bobby Reynolds a lot of trouble with Cameron. The Were thing, remember? The Were who was being victimized by the Sheriff's second? I found out about it and it was all fixed?"

"I was thinking about something more personal? Something which I had to learn about from _someone else_? Like maybe a scenario in which in which you were harmed? Something you were not up for because you're never going to be up for _anything_ if you're too squeamish to properly sustain yourself?" Arms crossed, expression even crosser.

"I was fine in Tulsa, Eric. I did what I needed to do to take care of the situation. There were no serious problems."

"Being _shot _isn't a serious problem? Interesting perspective. I seem to recall when I've been shot feeling more than a little peaked. I remember usually bleeding quite a bit. But evidently, you don't seem to feel that's an issue."

"I was fine. I didn't see the need to alarm you over it." Meanwhile I was practically trembling in my chair thinking the jig was up on this one.

He looked at me darkly and said, "Oh, really? Really, you didn't? Sometimes you piss me off so much I just don't even know what to say to you, Sookie." He was practically spitting he was so mad.

"Okay, I got shot. It's true. The Were gave me some of his blood. And then I was fine, Eric. Really."

"I am already tired of the fucking brave routine in combination with the I won't feed routine. Somehow, the two are just at cross purposes in my mind. I wonder why?"

I could sense Stan outside the door, out of my sight line. How embarrassing. Stan really wanted to go back to Dallas right now. Who could blame him? I'd like to go to Dallas too, or just about any place that would remove me from the blazing gaze of Eric's eyes. I tried to regroup.

"Do we really have to have this argument with Stan here? Eric, it happened a _month_ ago. It's done. I'm clearly fine. Bobby took care of the shooter and the culprit who hired him with Cameron's blessing after a trial. There's simply no point in making a fuss about any of it. It's _done._"

"_Why_ did they shoot at you? Or did they shoot at the Were and you got in the way?"

Hmmm. A question I couldn't answer without making things worse. Eric just knew me so well… And if I admitted to him I took the bullet for a Were I didn't even know, he'd be absolutely furious. And what if he asked me _where_ I was hit? Even worse.

"Look, I'm sorry you're upset but I'm not discussing this further. There's no point. I'm fine. You need to give me the space to do my job. I was just trying to liaise with the Weres involved and Bobby's people. And someone for Porter, the guilty party, went after the Were who made the complaint. It's really simple. This stuff happens all the time and you know it."

He glowered at me. "Simple? _Simple? _Ever think of the fact that if they were shooting at a Were they might want to use silver bullets? If they didn't, they were hacks and you were very lucky. You're not up to being shot with silver. And I'm not up to losing you because of some _fucking_ Were. I never should have let you go without a bodyguard. And I won't ever again."

I heard Stan shifting around outside and thinking that he really had no interest in being in the middle of this situation and that he came to deal with the strain between Eric and Roberto. I was the one thing that Stan had seen that could make Eric lose his implacable cool. This was so embarrassing. To me and to Stan. It was a good time to know when to totally back down.

"I'm sorry you're so upset." Really I was. It was precisely the reason why I hadn't told him- I didn't want to upset Eric or worry him. "The next time you can definitely send someone with me. I promise. Okay?"

"You fed from the Were? You _bit_ him." He looked at me intently on this point. I considered how badly my answer might go astray. I'd fed from a _male_ Were. He knew I liked Were blood. It was tasty. Sometimes I had donated blood from Emily, our housekeeper. In a _glass_. I didn't feed from humans or Weres directly. But if I started, the deal was that I was supposed to feed from women because I was attracted to men. It was a reciprocity thing for his having only male donors. Of course, there was the emergency aspect of it, but really Eric was so incredibly jealous at times. It was hard to know whether he'd just be happy that I'd bitten someone, or if he'd be dismayed that it was a man and a Were on top of it. I didn't want the fact I fed from a male Were to get him going. Alright, I might as well come totally clean, since I knew it would be revisited again in private and there was no way he was going to let it drop without getting every detail. There was no way there would be much more drama than this in front of Stan. So he might as well hear it all.

"I did. From his wrist. He insisted. But not a lot. Then, I went after the shooter. Carefully, of course." I steeled myself, knowing what was coming.

He leaned forward onto my desk and looked directly into my eyes. His voice was even lower as he replied,

"You went after a shooter_ who still had a gun? _By yourself, after you'd been shot and lost what precious little blood you had on board in your two week old form? _Fantastic._ I'm so impressed with your judgment on these ventures. What if it had been a trap? And don't give me the all-knowing telepathy crap. You are not setting foot out of this fucking compound without someone guarding you. Period. End of story. It's either that or you will quit the liaison shit. Really, you so infuriate me at times, Sookie." He looked infuriated, too. He practically shook as he spoke and loomed toward me as if straining not to be much more emphatic. But no mean sire voice, no touching me roughly because he was angry. Eric's word was as good as gold. He frankly looked like he was struggling to keep his word. It wasn't lost on me that I'd thought of all of his points _after_ I'd done all that stuff. Which was… a little late. Eric hated my 'where angels fear to tread' behavior with a passion. He had for years and he was still so worried about my getting hurt, or running out of fuel because I didn't want to feed and being vulnerable to harm.

I bit my lip and just nodded. He stomped back to his offices with Stan, who was relieved not to be caught in the midst of a domestic dispute any longer. I felt like mentally shouting at him that _he_ had started it. But I didn't.

Several hours later, after Stan was out in the Quarter, Eric came back and asked about the Were again. The wrist. Not a lot. Then he asked where I took the bullet. That ended all consideration of whether I'd bitten anyone of any sex, any race or anything. The look he gave me made me wince. That was how I ended up with Rico as my permanent bodyguard. Then he laid into me on the fact that if I'd finally fed directly from the Were, why couldn't I do it every day? I sighed heavily and thought about visiting Banff just for old times sake. I could leave flowers again on Madeleine's grave. Have a drink in the bar at the Banff Springs Hotel. Relax. Not be in so much trouble.

The battle over how I fed was endless. Eric considered me delicate and frangible. I thought I was just fine. I just had complete control over my hunger. I never woke ravenous. I only had real blood from Pam's supply of donors if I was going to go do something where I might need an extra boost. And I was free from all the risks a new vampire might normally pose to friends and family. I went for 'drinks' with Claudine (me True Blood, Claudine invariably something sweet like hot chocolate). I'd even visited Claude and Claudine at their home in Monroe. I played with Amelia and Tray's children. I shored up Hunter when he got frustrated with being a teenager gifted with too much insight into his peers' minds. I never thought about any of them as food. Food came in a bottle or a bag, or arrived in a glass. It was not in corporeal form unless there was no other possible choice. Eric did not approve. He didn't get it. He didn't _want_ to get it. It made me feel like I was a really lousy vampire at times.

In my mind, the only reason to be a vampire was to stay with Eric. All of the rest of it, maybe with the exception of being able to extend my telepathic net wider than ever and not getting killed in a situation like the one in Tulsa, was just something for me to set aside. Take what is useful and ignore the rest was my attitude. The hunger, the anger, the rampant sexuality, the violence. I just wasn't interested. I had found a way to turn down the volume of it all, to tune it out. While Eric seemed frustrated with my disconnect, the one who watched with seemingly endless fascination was Niall. He seemed intrigued by the fact that I could somehow exert control over what I guess was the primal drive for being a vampire- the lust for blood. He had remarked that I seemed like a much, much older vampire in that sense. But then of course, Niall had always had his own agenda and I was sure that on some level he thought it was immensely convenient to have a vampire relation who wouldn't go after any of them. But Niall didn't really understand me either. Everyone always took the simplistic approach.

There were things I just felt I couldn't share with anyone. Lately, I often felt that Eric just didn't get me anymore. It made me sad and frustrated. After a decade of feeling that he really understood me, we were at a sort of impasse. It was ironic that in becoming vampire, I had become harder for him to comprehend. I just wasn't Eric's style of vampire at all. I wasn't really anyone's.

I was different from any vampire I knew or had read about. I had a different set of skills. Very different.


	12. Chapter 12

**XII.**

I guess it was hard to say who was more caught off guard. As stunned as Niall looked that I went after him, I'd have to say I thought Eric was even more surprised than Niall. I guess on some level Niall had that sense to remember there was still Brigant blood running through my veins, even if it was vampire tinged. The Brigants were a pretty fiery lot at times. It had always taken a lot to make me lose my temper. But when I did, it was fairly epic. Losing it twice in less than two weeks was really something. The first time surprised the two of them. The second time surprised everyone.

It started out as a civil conversation in which we discussed Hunter, and Niall's dubious plan of trying to strengthen the potency of my blood and thereby my ability to bind Hunter to me. We were in the conference room at the compound. I was initially pretty silent while Niall spoke. The more I'd thought about his suggestion that Hunter should be bound to me, the more I questioned his motivations. Hunter resisted vampire glamouring and he could read me. He had long ago locked onto my thought signature and even if I was undead, he had been able, with assistance, to lock onto it again in a different 'frequency' range. We kept it quiet, since I had told him it was very useful though it could be dangerous because vampires were not going to like a teenage telepath reading their thoughts. I thought that Niall might know about it, though. It occurred to me that perhaps Niall thought he could use Hunter as a conduit of information that I might not be willing to share with him. Hunter's ability to read me would likely be enhanced further by being bound to me. Although, I had become quite adept at shutting myself down and insulating myself from others when I needed to. When I'd been shot last October, no one with any tie to me found out until later. Not Claudine or Pam or even Eric. I had really tried to cultivate that vampire inscrutability. Hunter couldn't get past that. I was sure that Niall didn't know that and I certainly wasn't going to tell him. I hadn't spent the better part of a decade hanging out with Eric for nothing.

But it didn't matter. Not surprisingly, Eric did not like Niall's nebulous plan. I think that our odd sire/child bond already posed enough challenges for Eric. The thought of adding some fae blood, and whatever magic Niall had planned with it, did not seem to be a welcome prospect. Eric said no. So I told my Grandfather that it was a big 'no' and that if he wanted Hunter protected he at least needed to tell us why and from what. But Niall still wouldn't say exactly _why_ Hunter needed to be protected. It was clear there was something else going on. Was he worried about vampires? Humans? Other Fae? I had a very hard time envisioning Hunter being at risk if the Prince of the Fae decided to confer some serious protection on him.

His anger over the fact that I simply wouldn't trust him on the issue was quite evident. Niall's thought signatures were sometimes a challenge to read, but I was _very _sure there was more to the plan than just some desire to protect Hunter, or even than providing a window into my mind. I got snippets of information. The most disturbing was that something had been promised to someone? He wasn't happy about it. He didn't want to play along with whatever that agreement entailed and part of his scheme with his blood dealt with trying to elude that situation. I was concerned about the fact that my Grandfather was coming as deftly close to lying to me as I'd ever seen or even read about anyone Fae doing. It made me even less inclined to agree to his plan.

When Eric rose and politely asked Niall to leave and Niall refused then told Eric to keep out of his way, I was already very much on edge. Eric being polite when angry had never been a good sign. He'd had that manner with a couple of Louisiana vampires who had questioned one of his edicts just last year and both ended up dead in this very same conference room. Eric, with additional stakes and silver dagger in hand, had politely asked the remaining members of their group if there were any more questions. Thalia stood by that night smiling, while Hubert and Rico, unglamoured, stared down at the three remaining vampires who trembled in their shoes. Yes, polite Eric was equal to extremely frightening Eric in my book. What could happen if Niall and Eric had a fight and Hubert and Rico came in the room? I felt as queasy as a human even thinking about it.

But Niall simply ignored Eric, though his eyes were flashing and he looked a peg brighter than usual. Instead he continued to argue directly with me, ignoring Eric while reiterating to me that I should really take his offer _very _seriously. So I finally just told him the simple truth. I didn't trust him and that I _knew_ that he wasn't telling me the whole truth. I could read enough of his thoughts to know he wasn't being forthright. I tried not to call him a liar to his face, but he got the point.

My point made him really angry. I got the feeling that he had every intention of even forcing some sort of exchange on me if that was his only option. As the arguing escalated, Niall looked angrier and angrier that I was sticking with Eric on the issue. Finally, he made the mistake of again mentioning Eric as my sire and that there was an option to fix that problem.

"You don't have to be bound by Eric's wishes. _I_ don't have to be bound by his wishes for you. In fact, if he is an impediment..."

Eric growled and, from where he sat, Niall threw some sort of magic at Eric, constraining him. It smelled like burnt cinnamon, like that web of energy that he'd used on me. I cringed, remembering how it had burned me. And Eric struggled in it. It would hurt him if he struggled, as I knew too well, and I saw welts start to rise on his bare arms.

And that was all it took to finally get me angry. I might keep it buried in a very deep well, but I was after all, still a _vampire_. And I was on Niall faster than a hornet, standing over him and grabbing his long hair, exposing his throat and snarling at him with my fangs down and with what I guess must have been very wild eyes. He was caught totally flat-footed and it seemed like it must have been a while since he contemplated the prospect that I really _was_ a vampire. I might have mastered all the urges but that didn't mean I couldn't draw on them when necessary.

"Let him go. Let him go _now_," I snarled, meeting his eyes. I felt this surge of aggression funnel through me.

Niall just stared at me, looking quite surprised. I was mere inches way from his throat, fangs run down. He had been far too trusting by letting me get so close to him.

"Don't think I won't do it. You have utterly misread me if you think I would let you harm Eric in _any_ way, Grandfather."

"I have sworn to protect him as you recall," Niall said with an edge to his voice. I felt tendrils of his trying to glamour me into releasing him. I pushed them aside, as if I was pushing hair out of my eyes.

"Don't insult my intelligence. Can you really think I am so naïve and stupid? You and your children swore to protect him _from others_ but gave me no promise that you wouldn't harm him yourself. And you are kidding yourself if you think you can glamour me. Release him." I pulled harder on his hair as I wrapped it tighter around my hand. "_Now_."

He released Eric but not without causing him some discomfort, from the sounds of it. Niall looked at me oddly then, as if quite caught off guard by something more than just my going after him. He plainly couldn't believe I wasn't susceptible to his glamour. My resistance to magic had grown as the months rolled by.

Eric regarded the two of us and was simply speechless. Literally. And for Eric that was truly a rarity. He looked at us with wide-eyed fascination. Niall was not the only one who had suddenly noticed that maybe I really was a vampire after all.

I still hadn't let go of Niall's hair. Niall glanced at my nose to see if I was even seriously tempted, but I was interested in something entirely different from warm fairy blood. I stood staring eye to eye with Niall and bore into his thoughts with every bit of energy I possessed because it to so much to get into his head. He met my gaze with intensity but seemed to shiver slightly at the onslaught.

What I saw was rather disconcerting. I was _not_ the first part-Fae vampire my grandfather had known. There had, in fact, been several, most of whom it appeared, he had killed or had someone else kill because they were hard to control. The were effectively sireless. 'Aberrations.' 'Rogues.' None of the others were telepaths, though. All were risks because of their ability to keep pace with the Fae, with a more than passing ability_ to do magic_ that wasn't part of the normal vampire skill set. That vampire in Seattle had been allowed to live because his only Fae-borne skill was teleporting. Harmless enough. However, if I hadn't been his own flesh and blood, I think Niall would have been troubled enough by my mere existence to have done me in. Niall thought I was different, however. I could see he had genuinely trusted me, up to the point he'd threatened Eric again, of course. He was, in fact, very proud of me. He was quite taken with my ability to control my hunger and urge to feed, as well as my expanded telepathic abilities. But this wrinkle, my growing resistance to magic, was a surprise to him. There was more to his thoughts as well… First there was the fact that he had basically foreseen most of the struggles that I would face if I was turned. That left me stunned. He had _known_?

I did not relax my grip on his hair as I said, "You knew? You knew when I was turned that all this could happen? About the teleporting? That I would be more resistant to a sire's call? About all of it? You _knew_ and yet you never said anything about what you knew?"

"Would he have turned you if he had known? And clearly from what I see now, you would have told him. Yet you are fine. Everything has turned out well. And you _wanted_ to be turned. Much sooner than you were willing to admit to yourself. You wanted to stay with him. You told me long ago to pay better attention, to learn about you as Claudine did. Your decision about this was made years ago. You were just working your way there in your mind. It was the only choice to extend your time with him. Did I know that it might not be simple? Yes. I would not have stood by and let you come to grave harm. I knew it would be difficult. But I knew, even in those early days, that things would work out. Even if the beginning was difficult. You were too strongly bound to have done anything as rash as your thoughts suggested because it would have harmed Eric. Even now, you cannot stand the thought of any harm to him. Look at you." He gestured to my hold on his long silvery hair "I was silent about what I knew because it was in your interest to be so. When you disappeared I tried to help you. You recovered quickly. In the end, things have worked out, have they not?"

Disturbing, yes, but still, what was the _other_ thing? His mind was occupied with something much more serious. My unique skills had drawn the interest of a specific individual. An individual that seemed to feel they somehow had rights to me, or to my service? But _how_ could that be? I had not indebted myself to anyone…

"Who is it? Who is it that 'wants' me or thinks I owe them service?"

His eyes sparkled angrily. He was clearly not entirely comfortable with whatever plans with their plans for me. Not comfortable telling me about it. And he was not so comfortable with the fact that I could read so much of him when I put real effort into it.

"You're a telepathic vampire with that touch of fae blood. Your skills are unusual, dear one. Additionally, I am becoming aware of the extent to which you are resistant to magic…" He put his hand on mine. I didn't even flinch. "Sookie, let go of my hair. I released Eric. Just calm down. We are not arguing further." He sighed. "Unfortunately, I presently find that I'm in a difficult position."

And then I saw her, in a flash in his mind. Raedself? _The_ Raedself. The Elf Counselor? I remembered her from eight years before. But what did she want with me? And she did _want _me. I let go of his hair and walked away from where he sat. I didn't need to restrain him. _He_ was not my problem. What the hell did this woman want from me? This, whatever it is, I thought to myself, has been in the works for quite some time.

"When? How long ago did she make this plan?"

Eric moved closer to me but looked totally lost, as if he couldn't quite keep up with what I was discussing with Niall. He stood behind me and finally crossed his forearm across my shoulder and chest and stood looking at Niall. I looked down at the ugly welts on his beautiful pale skin and tried not to get angry all over again.

Niall was silent. Finally, his deep green eyes met mine and he said simply,

"Since Dieter. She has evidently been interested in you ever since you encountered and resisted Dieter. After she met you, she saw that you had resisted Dieter's magic so strongly. We asked her to help treat you as a favor and what she asked in return was… you. _After_ you were turned. She is interested in your skills and your resistance to some forms of magic. And now… now you are immortal."

I felt an explosion of anger from Eric. He was plainly appalled.

"You let me turn Sookie, with the idea that she would be _given_ to someone, like a _possession_?" he snarled at Niall. He looked like he was inches away from attacking him.

However, Niall looked at Eric as if he was an idiot.

"Of course _not_, Eric. When she did us the favor I did not know that what she would ask in return would be so… _archaic_. She did not ask it of me until Sookie was turned. She has kept track of Sookie. She knows of Sookie's being turned because Sookie is so active working with the Fae in the US."

"Grandfather, did you make an actual agreement with her?" I asked, trying to parse everything I knew about being indebted to the Fae.

"She requested your service to her, when she learned you were turned, in exchange for her having removed Dieter's magic. There was no prior agreement. I did _not_ agree to deliver you to her. I was… evasive. I decided that if I could use some form of magic to increase your abilities, perhaps she would reconsider. It would make you a threat in some sense to her. She would be more inclined to keep you at a distance. As it is, I think your resistance to magic is beyond what she anticipated by far. I do not think she knows what she is asking for in this respect."

"What does she mean by my service to her? Are those her specific words?"

"Service as in you become her servant, you do her bidding. In Germany. You have to understand that, to the Fae, vampires are merely dead, inanimate, Sookie. They are not viewed as having any real rights. She looks at you as a very sophisticated tool, I think. From her perspective, she is asking me to gift her with a desirable and magically resistant tool- a dead telepath."

Eric was a wall of barely contained rage at this point. I reached back and rested my hand on his thigh, trying soothe him and to stop him from speaking.

"So I would not have attracted her interest if I was not turned. But I cannot be bound to serve if I am not truly Fae. Can I? I owe her no debt. This was _your_ debt or Claudine's. The favor was not one _I_ asked of her." Now I had the heart of the problem but also the risk in what he had proposed. Too much fae blood, with his magic and perhaps, dead or not, I was placed at greater risk of being bound to her service in spite of the fact that I would pose greater danger to her. Niall and I were family. His debts could become my debts, just as Eric's protection had been assumed by Niall's children. And I did not want to be bound to him, either. I didn't trust that it could have other implications, unforeseen. I worried about what impact it could have on Eric if he had my blood. I didn't like the entire plan. More Brigant blood was not a solution to anything.

He quickly took in the fact that I still refused his plan. Finally, Niall looked at me soberly and said,

"If you do not do this, she says she will take Hunter in your place, and have him turned. She assumes that he will be like you. I was trying to see if I could make you unpalatable to her needs, by increasing your abilities and to bind Hunter to you in a way that would prevent any other vampire from ever binding him or turning him to a different sire. I do not know why, but for whatever reason, she seems to want a vampire to do her bidding. I thought it wise to protect Hunter by binding him to you. Yet you refuse the best means to do so."

I looked him with dismay and said,

"He's a _child_! This isn't the Middle Ages! He isn't chattel to be branded or put to work. What you propose is just as disgusting as what she proposes. If either of you were to so much as look sideways at Hunter, I can tell you right now, I'd flat out kill you. And don't think I don't know how. I assure you, before I started working extensively with the Fae as a liaison, I did _very _thorough research. You can tell her I said so. And if you are hoping that I am _so _'soft hearted' because I don't want to feed on anyone, or that I don't like violence, I'm telling you right now that it will be the biggest miscalculation of your long lives if either of you messes with Hunter. She would turn a _child?!_ You had better tell her she will regret it if she harms Hunter. Seriously regret it. And you won't be very happy either."

Niall looked a bit taken aback by my words. Eric stood behind me, open-mouthed, fangs run down.

"I really do not see what you think, with your present ability, you can do to safeguard him," Niall said quietly. "I think you need whatever enhancement to your strength I can offer you."

"Oh, I have abilities that you don't see, Grandfather. I can do much, much more than any of you, even Eric, know. My strengths are not what any of you think they are. I know more about the Fae than any of you can imagine. From some very interesting sources. Before you could even kill me, I could do you more damage than you can ever possibly imagine. I am not one for idle threats. I would _strongly_ suggest that you tell this Raedself that if she wishes to politely ask for my assistance in matters that concern her that I will be happy to consider it. But if her plan is to have a 'servant', to take me away from my home and my family, or to threaten my cousin's child in order to accomplish her goals, _**she had better rethink her plan**_. She had better find it in herself to be pleasant and gracious. And _extraordinarily_ careful. Her time for telling people what to do is long past. You're the Prince. Fix _your_ problem and don't you _dare_ make it mine or Hunter's." My eyes bore into his as I said these words and he rose from his chair sharply.

"You threaten me, Sookie? You threaten _me?"_ His eyes flashed with anger.

"No," I said firmly. "_I give you my word_!"

I said this looking directly into his eyes so he could take the full implication of what I was saying.

"You tell her what I said, Grandfather. It was your mistake, so _you_ fix it. Because if _I_ start fixing things, you're going to be a very unhappy camper. I can guarantee it!"

Niall looked at me with his eyes practically like glowing embers. He was so angry. And yet… he clearly didn't know what to think. I could see he was considering arguing further with me. I was done arguing, however. I walked over and looked up at him.

"Listen to me carefully, Grandfather. Sookie's Golden Rules. The Fae don't touch Eric. They don't touch Hunter. They don't touch _anyone_ that you know I love, or that you can even think of that I care about or like. Don't even try. If they do, your entire world will come tumbling down. I promise you that you will be so deeply unsettled by my consequences that you cannot even begin to contemplate how you will deal with their repercussions… I have learned much from a whole host of Fae and those who do not, perhaps, 'appreciate' the Fae. So you just tell the Raedself that I strongly suggest she back off. You don't believe me? Try me. _Just try_. You'll both get the surprise of your very long lives. My answer is NO and that's quite final. Please make sure she understands that answer and _all _its implications."

I could plainly see that he was trying to figure out exactly what it was that I knew, and what I could do. He was concerned. What _could_ I do with my abilities, that had not yet been revealed to him, to Eric, or to Claudine? Could I… open portals? Like the ancient one near Hotshot, which Claudine had so carelessly mentioned to me months ago? Where could I possibly have learned how to open a portal? From whom? What would happen if some of the Fae who were 'less attractive' were thereby revealed to the public? Where could I have gotten information that would harm them? What if I truly knew of the _old_ ways, beyond iron and lemon, to kill fairies and elves? What if I knew some of the old magic. I was after all, a vampire. What if…

_I've won_ I thought to myself.

If only the cost of winning hadn't been so high…


	13. Chapter 13

**XIII.**

After my grandfather left, I sat there stewing. On the one hand, it was the second time in my life where I was well prepared for some really bad eventuality. I guess I'd have to give myself a pat on the back for having foreseen more trouble with the Fae. It had been quiet for me personally on that front for far too long. And I owed much of my ability to react to Rico, because of research he'd helped me do on the Fae. And for keeping me safe while I explored a long and dark history of the Fae, in part from a demon perspective. Rico, our half-Fae, half-demon security person for the past five years was not exactly a fan of either race. Like me, he knew what it was like not to fit into the world you were born into. He had felt, at times, ostracized by both, and although he had come to us indirectly through Niall, he had implied more than once that it was considered to be a step down among the Fae, who already disliked him for his demon heritage, to be working for vampires, even a vampire king. Rico had a special disaffection for the Fae. Rico had also accompanied me on an interesting trip I'd made to Renard Parish, to check something out back in January. A curious clearing that I had heard about from Claudine. Oh yes, I knew quite a lot that would disconcert my great-grandfather…

After my grandfather left, Eric came and sat in the chair next to me and put out his hand to me but looked away. I winced when I saw the crisscrossed burns on his forearm and the top of his hand still looked wicked. I knew those marks well and remembered how it stung. They'd heal within a few hours but, nonetheless, it really made me angry to think that my Grandfather had left him looking like that.

I took his hand very gently. I felt immense turmoil from him. It continued to go all wrong, this business of my being turned, I thought ruefully. At least in his eyes. Something that he had thought would make him happy and which should have been so simple had brought him ongoing frustration and worry. Pam was going to marry Tan but had decided that maybe it was better to just leave things as they were- with Tan warm, human, and aging. Eric would not have been able to accept such an option. But at present, I felt a twinge of guilt from him. Had turning me put me in serious danger now?

"It was my choice, Eric. _My_ choice. He's right. I'd been edging steadily toward being turned for years. And other than briefly during the stress of that first week, I have never regretted it. So don't beat yourself up about it, okay? It's not going to do either one of us any good."

"What are we going to do?" he said, his voice sounding tight.

"About the Raedself? My grandfather accepted her favor and it is his problem if he cannot deliver what she wished in return, not ours. He can try to fix it himself. I am not what she wants, anyway, because I'm not what she thinks I am. I am no one's servant. And neither is Hunter, nor will he be. Hunter throws off glamour better and better and when I'm done with him he will be better and stronger than I ever was even if he is less Fae. I would be a threat to her if she tried to put me in a submissive position. She remembers what I was and does not know what I am. But don't worry. I wasn't bluffing. If it all goes south, I have a few interesting things up my sleeve."

Eric was silent. Thinking about what a strange little vampire I was. That eighth fae blood along with a powerful sire had been just enough to make me a bit… unusual. Well, _I'll say_, I thought to myself trying not to roll my eyes. I should really keep out of his head so I don't get annoyed.

I really hoped Eric could understand why I had not told him in all these years about Hunter's gift. I tried to tell myself that he knew me well enough, that he would understand because it was exactly the type of choice that he would have made. I wasn't so sure he'd understand that, though. Lately Eric showed a lot of signs of not expecting me to think like him, or being caught off guard when he realized I did. He wanted me to _act _more like him but was somehow surprised if I thought like him and acted like me.

"Listen Eric, I didn't tell you about Hunter because…"

Suddenly, I just felt such a build up of internal turmoil from him. It was hard to sort out. Eric was usually so calm, so measured. Not currently though. But was it even about Hunter? I tried to gauge his thoughts again a bit. No, he was still stuck on the issue of turning me, wanting me with him, anger at Niall, anger the Raedself. He was still churning internally about it all…

He cut my thoughts about _his _thoughts off by rising and, lightening fast, pulling me to my feet and kissing me passionately. He pushed me into sitting on the table and, engulfed in his arms, before I knew it I was flat on my back on the table, with him looming over me, his hands already under my blouse. A heady reminder of part of why I got turned in the first place, without question… the love and passion between us. I held back his hair, which was hanging down loose and looked up at him. Ten years and still taking my breath away, metaphorically speaking at this point. But this was not happening in a room with an unlocked door, even if it was our own house or compound.

"Let's go upstairs," I suggested softly in between his kissing me, unbuttoning my blouse and unfastening my bra. He didn't stop. "Eric…" I was cut off by his mouth on mine.

It seemed he was just spilling over with emotions. In the end he was practically lying on top of me and it really didn't seem like stopping to go upstairs was part of his plan since his pants were coming down. Well, I was still an old fashioned girl with human mores. I thought I heard someone walking in the hall and so I wrapped my arms around him and in a flash we were in our bed. With an umph! I'd had 200 lbs of Eric land on me. If I breathed I would have had the wind knocked out of me. He looked somewhat disoriented. Meanwhile I immediately wondered how long I'd be able to go without a really good meal after that little stunt. Taking someone else with me required much, much more energy. I'd only done it with Hunter once to show him something. Hunter was tiny compared to Eric, who was big and quite magical in his own way. Dragging him along, with whatever his magical energy was, was quite something. But it was an interesting experiment, actually. It was good to know I could do it. I could already feel the traces of hunger begin though.

"Now you've done it," I said, shaking my head. "Now, I'm going to be _really_ hungry. And the _reason_ we couldn't simply walk upstairs was…?"

Without missing a beat, Eric pulled slightly away from me and his eyes glowed as he smiled at me with admiration to say,

"Well, you've definitely kept _that_ one a secret, Lover. What else have you got up your sleeve?" he said, taking my hand and kissing it and then pushing up the sleeve of my unbuttoned blouse to kiss my forearm.

I looked at him wondering how some of the rest of it would go over. I frankly didn't think he was going to be very happy with a few things I had up my sleeve.

"Just… what's your line? Trust me? _Trust me_, Eric."

His long fingers held my face tenderly and smiled.

"You're one thing I'm sure of, Lover."

He smiled at me, but his eyes, and his emotions, still betrayed the intense conflict and worry that he felt about me, about everything that revolved around his having turned me. He was still worried that ultimately, it would harm me to have been turned. In his eyes, much as he loved me, I had come out all wrong. I sighed.

I kissed him and he rekindled that conference room passion.

**

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**

It was shortly after sunset more than a week later when Eric gently shook me awake. We were in bed, wrapped in the sheets. The light in the room was given off solely by Niall, who was pacing, and extremely agitated.

I sat up groggily, pulled the sheet up over my bare breasts, and wrapped it around me a bit.

I suddenly felt a lurch of something painful and bent over. I felt… horrible. I let out a small gasp. Something was very, very wrong.

Niall turned to face me, his eyes wild and looking tearful.

"You need to brace yourself," he said hoarsely.

Eric put his arm around me, and drew me closer to him as he looked at Niall.

I breathed in deep as I hadn't since I was turned. It was as if something had knocked all the wind out of me.

I met Niall's eyes. "What happened? What has happened?"

Niall looked at me, almost as if fearful. He said in one short burst,

"Claudine is dead and Hunter is missing."

I gasped and bent over again, feeling ill.

"Dead? Claudine is _dead_? What _happened_?!" I sat back up practically shaking.

Niall looked at me, his eyes now looking openly as if he had cried.

"I sent Claudine to watch over Hunter. I told the Raedself that we were unable to comply with her request. With her request for you to serve her. I told her that I did not feel that the plan in its present form was wise. She did not appear to be very perturbed. I told her that you would be willing to speak with her to discuss alternate terms but that you would prefer remain here, with Eric. That I had no right to guarantee your service to her. And that she had no right to ask it of you because you are not entirely of our blood. I told her that you were willing to consider assisting her, that we would meet with her. I warned her that you are not what she expected."

He paused and seemed to frown and hesitate.

"This was three days ago. I thought everything was fine, but still, I took precautions. I asked Claudine to watch Hunter as she used to watch you. She did and things had been fine. In mid-afternoon today, Claude contacted me. He suddenly felt... He felt…"

"The void of her presence. Not being able to feel her…" I gasped. "She's really gone." Up until this point I had never been aware that Claudine was such a constant presence in me. In some way it was almost as if we had been bound to one another I now realized. Now she was gone and it was like someone had erased something vibrant inside me. I just shook my head and tears rolled down my face. We had cancelled plans to see each other only days before. She hadn't explained why to me. She must have been watching Hunter but she didn't tell me.

Niall looked as if he'd been hit by a truck. "I …" He looked so genuinely distraught. His daughter Líadin's child, his grandchild, beloved and gentle.

"Who did this for the Raedself? Would she have killed Claudine herself?" I asked, my jaw tight with anger.

Niall shook his head mutely. "I do not know for certain who did it. Whoever has Hunter killed her to take him. I do not believe that the Raedself would have done this herself. But someone working for her has. I am not even sure she will know that it was done in her name. It is not… her way. I assume she has Hunter in order to get you to come to her."

"You're sure it's her? The Raedself? Not Gwyn ap Nuad? Not one of the others?"

Niall merely nodded his head soberly.

I rose to dress. We had to move quickly, I thought to myself. Hunter was 14 years old. Even if his abilities might in the end exceed mine because of my helping to guide him, he was still a child. While he could resist my strongest attempts to glamour him when we practiced, I was quite sure that he would be no match for the Raedself or really any one of the Fae. He was only a child and they could really harm him. And she'd threatened to have him turned. How could someone have taken a child, I asked myself? What kind of person did these things? And then there was Claudine, my beloved cousin and friend. Working her way up, but always, in my eyes, already an angel because of her kind heart. And she was gone. I buried the urge to cry deep inside and latched instead onto the urge to find out who had done this vile act. I had always disliked the idea of retribution but this… this was enough to motivate the very darkest in my nature.

I turned back to Niall and said simply, "How?"

He bowed his head. "She was stabbed. Iron. She died protecting him, trying to prevent him from being taken, I think. I smelled lemon in the room as well."

She was clearly stabbed many times then, from what he said, because Claudine was strong as a horse. I looked at him and saw the edge of something that he didn't even want to think. A full fae-blooded person could likely not have handled the iron or lemon even with protection. But a part-Fae? I stiffened. No. Stick to what must be done to recover Hunter. Focus on that. Claudine is already lost. First Hunter and then Claudine's killer. Still… I tried to force myself to focus.

I left the secure room and went to change. I dressed in all black, denims and a heavy raw silk shirt. For the first time in a week, I put the my locket back on. Claudine was a Brigant and so by blood was Hunter. Eric and Niall were waiting for me outside the bathroom. Eric was already dressed, also in black. My hair was pulled back severely. No makeup. I pulled on my boots and then opened one of my drawers and took out a long thin steel cord with small wooden bars at the end that I could slip into my pocket. I carried this sometimes when working on some of my Fae cases. It was light and handy.

"I have to go downstairs to the basement." I paused for a moment and picked up Eric's hand, looking up into his eyes. "You're going to have to trust me, Eric. _Really_ trust me. You may get very… concerned before this is over."

He looked down at me, with eyes that seemed to glow with the color of the evening sky.

"Well, I'm going with you. I'll leave Pam in charge. I cannot let you do whatever you plan to do alone. I won't let you go alone."

"I'm taking Rico. I'll be fine." I glanced over at Niall. I seriously wondered if he'd be any help or if he was worried about starting some sort of internecine war between the fairies and the elves. He was such in a difficult position even if it was his grandchild who'd been killed and his great-great-grandchild who'd been taken.

Eric shook his head. "I don't care if you're taking Rico, Hubert and an army. I'm going with you. She did it to get _you_, Sookie. I'm not letting you go there on your own with a bunch of Fae who may end up flipping sides for convenience," he said firmly.

I hesitated. On the one hand, I would feel safer walking anywhere on this earth with Eric at my side. On the other, I knew where I was headed, and what I would do to get there would be difficult for him to accept. There was a way to do what I wanted, what I _needed_, to do. What I needed to do in order to be sure, absolutely _sure_, that I could retrieve Hunter. A frightening way. An old way. But Eric would find it hard to accept. Nonetheless, this was likely a one shot deal. If I didn't do it right, it would disastrous. She could have us both, Hunter and me. Maybe kill us both when she realized I wasn't quite the bargain she wanted. No, it was the only way. Niall watched us as I silently sized up the situation. It was better for Eric to know, even if he hated it. To know the truth, in case I was wrong about any part of it and I didn't come back. Finally, I nodded.

"Rico will _never_ flip sides, Eric. But if you want to go, I'll feel better with you with me. But you cannot expect to do anything other than just accompany me. You do not really know the elves. You…." I just shook my head. Eric knew fairies but that wasn't knowing elves or some of the less amenable Fae. "Just meet me in the kitchen in a few minutes. Tell Pam I need blood. Real blood." I was going to need at least several glasses before I left.

"Where are we going?" Eric asked quietly. He had taken down his long sword from the bedroom wall and was examining it instead of looking me in the eye as he asked. He already had a bad feeling about the whole business.

"I don't know that you'll need the sword. But… maybe you'll feel better carrying it. Take it. I'm going to Renard Parish. To Hotshot."

Niall's brightness dimmed. "You will not. You _cannot_ know this!" He stared at me in amazement.

"Actually, Grandfather it is _so_ much worse than you think. And I'm not even going exactly where you think I am, either. Let's just say that in the past six months, I've been quite busy. I'll be back in a few minutes."

I popped downstairs into the hot basement and knocked on the doorframe to signify my entry. They were listening to Springsteen's _Live in Dublin_ album. The reddish glow throughout the black cavern of the basement would have been eerily frightening if I did not know them well.

"Rico?" I called out quietly.

There was a low rumble that seemed to shake the walls as they stirred.

"Remember your offer? I need to take you up on it. I really need your help."

Rico emerged from a dark corner, his eyes glowing like hot coals as he looked down at me. Nearby, Hubert, another Fae/demon cross, moved out of the shadows, as well. He was larger and more frightening to me than Rico but I didn't know him as I did Rico.

"Only Rico, Hubert, but thanks. You remain to guard the others here. We trust you to take care of Pam and Thalia. Guard them well."

Rico moved closer to me and extended a hand larger than a catcher's mitt. He was about seven feet tall and a broad wall of muscle He could eat a tree or a cow or really anything at all. Including me. Without his glamour, Rico was still human shaped. He had black eyes that glowed orange with flames, a large nose and a huge mouth with glittering white teeth. His hair was long, black and wavy. His skin was charcoal color. When angry he glowed from within, like piece of hot coal crusted with ash. Even vampires feared him. He could literally incinerate with his touch if he so desired, descended as he was from fire demons. And yet, he could also be quite gentle and was good humored and a surprisingly deep thinker about the world. Rico liked me because I was kind. He had taken my turning well. The Fae generally really disliked dead people. But not Rico. He said he could not judge me, because I had never judged him. I had never treated him as a person lesser than myself. This, to Rico, was an invaluable thing. We were truly friends. In reading his thoughts, I would have to say that he loved me. He was genuinely protective of me. Even so, thinking of what I would have to do, I was terrified.

Hunter, I told myself. The most viable plan, with an almost certain chance of recovering him.

I took Rico's very warm hand in my cold one, and tried not to tremble. I was used to touching Rico now, in spite of the immense magic that welled within him. There was no electricity, only heat. His fingers closed around mine and he veiled himself.

Stay focused only on the goal, not on how scary it might be to get there, I told myself.

Find Hunter. Avenge Claudine.

Hunter.

I can do this.

I _will_ do it.


	14. Chapter 14

**XIV.**

[Your playlist selection for this passage is Smashing Pumpkin's_ The Beginning is the End is the Beginning]_

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In a clearing outside just outside of Hotshot I spoke quietly to Calvin. He had aged little in the past decade, but he looked gray and old as I spoke to him.

"The iron rods may not be enough?" he asked, incredulous, looking at the buckets of iron filings, from my own stock, which I had brought with me.

"The filings may be more effective. You can throw them in the eyes to slow them down then use the rods. But remember, iron works only if they're Fae. Not everything in this place is Fae. Just… be ready. You can try water, you can try the shotguns, religious symbols. They hate spoken Latin. Whatever comes out, _if_ anything comes out, will be fast. And it will be hungry. If I do it right, there will be nothing that escapes. But even so, you may be left… apprehensive that the portal is so close to you. So keep this stuff on hand. It was only fair to tell you. You should be prepared. We will plan to come back by the same route. I'll make sure that it is very well sealed when we return."

He nodded slowly, meeting my eyes as if he didn't quite know what to think. I looked at his pack of panthers, less Jason, who he honored my wishes by not calling. Frankly, I really didn't know what to think either. I had never done this part of it before. It was all theory, not practice from my end for this venture.

I glanced over at Niall, who looked very apprehensive, and Eric, who stood silent and still, watching me, with his long sword strapped across his back. He had not even asked me what I was going to do. Which was good, because frankly, I didn't think we had any time for arguments about it. It was already hard enough just thinking about it and knowing I was going to do it. I nodded to Calvin and then popped. When I returned, moments later, I was drenched from head to toe from the water of the nearby pond. Eric looked puzzled but Niall began to look as if he had caught on to something. He stiffened and then started to speak to me, but I brushed him off with a wave of a very wet hand. I had been focusing on narrowing the bonds I had to Eric and to Pam, to the smallest possible threads. I walked away from them, farther into the clearing. Then I called Rico to me.

"Rico?" I said softly. 'I'm ready."

He appeared instantly, unglamoured, before me and knelt, bowing his head. Kneeling, he was still almost about as tall as I was. I tried to steel myself. I trusted him, I reminded myself.

"You are willing?" I spoke softly, in almost a whisper. I tried to hold myself steady.

"Yes," his voice rumbled. His eyes, glowing like flames, met mine.

No more time for fear, I said to myself, summoning every ounce of courage I possessed. He had kept us safe for years. I trusted him. And he trusted me.

I leaned forward and pushed aside his coal black hair and sank my fangs into his neck, while Niall restrained Eric, who tried to launch himself toward me growling,

"_Sookie, No!_" His eyes were full of fear.

Niall was able to restrain Eric firmly enough but they both looked at me as if totally appalled. I closed my eyes to focus on the task.

Rico's blood tasted of bitterness and ash, blackness and harsh soot. It was truly horrible. But I drank on and on, finally trembling and then paused, opening my eyes slowly as I felt the blackness and heat permeate me. Steam rose from my water-saturated clothes, and I gasped. I quickly tore at my wrist and pressed it to his lips. His eyes glowed brightly with the taste of my blood on his lips. He closed his lips over my wrist, almost engulfing it. After several seconds more he pushed my wrist away and rose, looming over me, beginning to luminesce like the red that showed through the darkness of a burning coal, with his teeth bared. He rocked his head back in a growl and then looked back down at me, eyes aflame. I met his eyes and held my ground. He resisted the urge to eat me, which was a very good sign. After a few moments more, he was calm enough to offer me his upturned hand, which I touched lightly, placing mine on his. A gesture of trust. Then he nodded to me and I withdrew my hand. I could see out of the corner of my eye that Eric was still struggling to pull away from Niall. I wished I could tell him in some fashion that it would be alright, but I really I didn't know how this was going to turn out. Because this wasn't even the hard part yet.

I turned to face the clearing between the two ancient oaks. I emptied and then refocused my mind with the increased power of Rico's blood. We had done this before, but with a different intent and without his blood. Just controlling the portal with my thoughts. Opening it, closing it. To a place of light, envisioning the Sidhe. Not entering. This would be harder. This time I was going inside, and to a very different place. To a dark place, in order to recruit troops. Closing my eyes I tried to focus every ounce of energy on a center point in the clearing. Intent, I told myself. I had to focus on my intent. I opened my eyes again and gradually the air seemed to condense into what appeared to be like a glass wall, almost like a window. I approached the crystalline field and placed my hand against it, while behind me I heard the nervous murmurings of the werepanthers and Niall murmur something in an astonished voice to Eric.

With a glance back at Rico, who stood in the path between the others and portal. He nodded to me, I said in a clear voice,

"In nomen lucis, patefacio hic porta," ('In the name of the light, I open this gate') in Latin, the language of the Christian church. The Church that had spelled the weakening of the Fae, and of the entire pagan world. The language of the church feared by demons and Fae alike. I was opening the gate, and driving back the inhabitants.

I focused on my path. The crystalline field began to illuminate and then hundreds and thousands of cracks began to appear and the image beyond grew dark and misty. Light began to emit from the cracks and the air around all of us went cold. I removed my hand and the entire field collapsed and a black mist began to billow out, spreading the smell of sulfur.

"Holy Mother of God…" I heard Calvin murmur.

But nothing emerged, other than the black, sulfurous mist of the Fae and demon Underworld, which spilled out across the ground and welled up around my legs and Rico's, slowly wending it's way toward the others.

I stepped inside the opening and immediately, I glowed bright white. I turned back and looked up at Rico nodding, then I looked back at Niall and Eric and said simply,

"I'm going to get some help, and then I'm going to get Hunter back. You can stay or come. The choice is yours. But I _am_ going. Rico will go with me and help keep me safe."

They all, including Calvin and all his panthers, looked at me wide-eyed and open-mouthed. I knew my eyes were no longer blue, no longer probably even very vampire or human-like both because of the way they looked at me, and the way I saw the world through my own eyes, which was altered, as if everything was filtered with red. Rico, who had followed after me, rested his large hand on my shoulder. He was glowing red like hot coals after passing the portal.

Eric stood looking at me intently for a moment and then briskly moved forward, passing the through the portal with an audible shiver. The iron in his sword seemed to hum as he crossed the portal. He stood at my side and glanced down at me. Then he picked up my hand. He too glowed an unearthly white but not as brightly as I did. It was the fae blood, some of mine, some of Rico's that made me so light I thought to myself. I looked back at Niall. I knew he would not follow us into this place. Not a place for fairies at all. The dead perhaps, demons, the dark Fae, but not a fairy prince…

"I cannot follow you there. I cannot," said Niall, shaking his head. He looked at me as if he had never really seen me before. Perhaps, really, I thought to myself, he hadn't. He had no real measure for my mettle before.

I nodded and smiled. "Well, I'll see you on the other side, then." With that, I bowed my head and said focusing,

"Saepio hic iter…" ('I close this road') I said, waving my hand over the portal entry.

The portal began to draw inward and seal. I hoped it would hold. I had only read and heard theory and even Rico, it seemed, had little empirical evidence for what we were doing. We were travelling my way, not his, walking the Crossroads into the Underworld and planning to walk out into the Black Forest in Germany still well before dawn. You could call it a seismic leap of faith. I had bound a half-Fae demon and he had liked me enough, and had enough self-control, to avoid consuming me as a result of having tasted my blood. This was old magic. In exchange, I had absorbed, at least for a time, an enormous amount of magical power that permitted access even to places that few would ever wish to visit. In Rico's specific case the power was largely the dark magic of his demon blood. One would need to be very careful not to follow the dark and violent influence of such magic. But there were distinct advantages to using Rico's blood…

Demons were immune to almost everything.

I turned and walked into the Underworld, to muster demons who would fight with us. With Rico, who was born there, and with Eric, a man who would, evidently, even walk through hell or as close as we could get to it, with me. I thought of Hunter, but Eric at my side gave me courage. I focused on his hand in mine, the simplest of connections. He gave me strength.

My plan was a simple one, really. The Raedself and her minions lived in the Black Forest in Southern Germany. They were woodland elves and their spirits were intertwined with the fir and spruce trees. While Dieter, who had been something of a lesser prince among the German Fae, had lived in a castle in southern Germany, the Raedself and her kind lived within the forest. They had achieved a kind of spiritual union with their forest surroundings. To damage their trees was to damage their fundamental source of power. Elves and fairies lived in a sort of tenuous balance. Some elves had quite vengeful and violent relations with the fairies and other Fae. These were not wise, beautiful and benevolent elves like those of Tolkien. Some were wise and some truly evil. The Raedself represented a kind of liaison and healer among the Fae. She was, according to their way, peaceful. Except for condoning kidnapping, murder and enslavement, of course. She was much older than Niall. She was ancient, as old as the oldest trees, perhaps several thousands of years old. Her mindset was, as Niall had pointed out, archaic, feudalistic. She needed to modernize as far as I was concerned. Expeditiously. And I was quite prepared to help her.

Since to harm her trees was to harm her, if I showed up with some of Rico's tree eating and burning relations, I was fairly sure that she and I could have a very straightforward conversation about why Hunter was going home with me. My discussion about Claudine was apt to be more difficult. I guessed Hunter would know who had killed Claudine. But I didn't know if he would be in any shape at all to let me see who it was. Other than rescuing Hunter I was pretty sure of one thing. When I found whoever had killed Claudine, I'd put an end to him. What kind of evil could kill such a light being, I thought to myself? Well, I could think of one. I hadn't thought of him in quite some time. I would not be surprised in the least if my gut suspicions were borne out. I wasn't in favor of retribution against anyone harming me. But Claudine? There was only one way of dealing with someone who could harm someone so fundamentally good.

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**

We emerged from the crossroads between two ancient spruce trees. I told Rico I thought these two should probably be left untouched. They were probably guardians of the portal like the giant oaks at the Hotshot portal and if destroyed, it could wreak real havoc. I still held Eric's hand tightly as we both turned and listened to Rico speaking in some indefinable tongue to the fifteen demons who accompanied us. Some were part Fae but others… who knew… They couldn't glamour their appearance at all and were quite frightening, truth be told. I guess the only thing giving away how I really felt was how tightly I gripped Eric's hand. Because I had pulled back so much of our connection, I couldn't gain any strength or comfort from him other than by that simple contact. I was so afraid that whatever the demon blood wrought in me, that it could go horribly wrong and I didn't want Eric getting affected by it. Demons were a fearsome race and could be quite primitive in their urges. I was gambling on the same ability that had allowed me to shut down all those vampiric urges. As Rico said, I was all about control. I glanced up briefly at Eric and saw that he was positively ashen. I had more than a vague idea that he was very shaken by the idea of what I'd done. I flashed briefly into his mind and saw that he was replaying something Stan had told him months ago, when he had come to see us after I was turned and Eric was concerned that I wasn't feeding. Eric thought I wasn't strong, was too vulnerable and the Tulsa thing had him so upset. But Stan had evidently told Eric not to worry about me, that I really was going to be fine. Now Eric was thinking that, really, my jumping in front of bullets hadn't been all _that_ bad. Still grasping at humor, my Viking. Meanwhile, I was still second guessing myself letting Eric come along but Rico had sworn to me long ago that he would always, always protect Eric. In a choice between protecting me and protecting Eric, there was always his oath of fealty to rely on. He was half Fae and had given his word to protect Eric. This was all the comfort I had at present.

We moved out into the grove of spruce and I tried to mentally scan the area. Then I decided that it didn't really matter. We could start here or anywhere. She'd show up. I nodded to Rico and he walked over and placed his hand against the trunk of a tall spruce pine. The entire tree withered with his touch. It was like kindling in no time.

Suddenly Niall appeared, eyes wide as he looked from me, to Rico and his friends and family. The Sidhe generally feared demons. And Niall was certainly looking rather alarmed.

"You wouldn't," Niall said looking back at me. "You _wouldn't_."

I looked at him intently and raised an eyebrow. Like hell I wouldn't.

"We can go one at a time until she gives me Hunter. Unless they get bored doing it so slowly or we run out of darkness. And I'm new to this, so really I don't know if they'll get a little impatient and hungry. Frankly, although Rico can talk to them, if they get a bit too worked up, I really don't think any of us could do much to stop them. So I don't think she should take all that long showing up."

"Sookie, this is not a game. This forest is ancient, it is filled with life. You simply…"

"Grandfather, when I give my word I, too, mean it," I said cutting him off. "And I don't _play_ games. I will do exactly what it takes to get what I want. She can turn over Hunter and save her precious trees, which I'm sure all of us, except for some of the guys back there who are looking a little hungry, would prefer. Or not. In which case there's going to be a very dead forest when I'm through here. I think the humans will get rather upset, too, don't you? The area's a tourist attraction, isn't it? And with open portals, who knows what will emerge?" I swept my hand back to the one I'd left wide open. The only thing holding it was a request in Latin to let none pass, which would probably feel like a slap on the wrist to your average demon.

To punctuate my intentions Rico moved onto the next tree while two demons fell upon the withered one he left and began to consume it, filling the air with smoke. The others hovered about hungrily. Spruce was reportedly quite delectable according to Rico. Three trees later Niall was still looking agitated, still regarding me with utter amazement. As the sixth tree withered and burned, the Raedself appeared, eyes wild with anger. Other elves seemed to unveil themselves among the trees much farther away from us, watching our group apprehensively.

"How dare you…" But then she pulled up short when she saw all the demons among our company.

"Nice of you to join us Elsbette (_pronounced Elz-betta_)," I said, calling the Raedself by what I had read was her given name. I crossed my arms across my chest.

She looked down at me, with her sparkling teeth showing in something that really didn't like a smile. I'd really have to call it a snarl, but without the sound effects. She was, just as I remembered, Rico's height, but lithe and brown.

"Do not call me that. I am _the_ Raedself."

"I thought that was a title of honor. Surely not conferred on a kidnapper of children and a murderer. How disappointing, if so. Of course, sometimes people of any race just go bad…"

She seemed to grow in ferocity, her teeth further bared as she loomed above me but then Rico touched a seventh tree and motioned to several of his brethren to take up a position near some of the other trees as well. The mossy-scented magic surrounding her, rolling off of her, was so powerful. I tried to envision it just passing around me and away. She looked at me angrily, but also with puzzlement. If she thought she was going to intimidate me with mere presence she was wrong. She stood surveying our group carefully. Fifteen fire demons of various persuasions could certainly wreak a lot of havoc and the portal was open so even if she took care of them, there might be reinforcements. And every tree that perished would weaken her, and anyone serving her. If more demons arrived, they could potentially destroy everything in their path. Checkmate, really. Whether she was ready to call it or not.

"You may have the child. He is of little use to me. You, on the other hand, are…" she said. But I cut her off.

"_Unavailable_. Where is Hunter?"

She did not answer and Rico withered an eighth tree, signaling to the others who in turn took out a ninth, tenth and eleventh. A quarter of this one grove was now looking withered and was being blackened and eaten by demons consuming the withered trees with their fiery mouths. Rico pulled up a sapling and ate it, staring at her coldly, waiting.

Suddenly Hunter appeared, looking disoriented. She pushed him, though not roughly, forward and he walked tentatively toward me.

"Aunt Sookie?" he said, looking at me apprehensively. His face was pale and there was a bruise on his cheek. He looked disoriented.

"It's fine Hunter, don't worry." I walked forward to meet him and flashed into his head to reassure him it really was me and that my eyes were just like this because I was upset, which was certainly the truth. I turned with him toward Niall. My locket began to pulse and glow softly under my shirt, a warning. I saw in Hunter's mind that I needed to… but I was not fast enough. Even Eric was fast enough as he drew his sword. I just managed to push Hunter away from me, toward Niall and Eric.

While my back was turned slightly to the Raedself, out of nowhere Dermot Brigant had appeared. I registered the alarm on Eric, Niall and Rico's face as I felt the dagger plunge into my upper back. I spun around with great force, causing him to lose his grip on it. I grabbed Dermot's forearm, breaking it, before he could try to reach for the the dagger and stab me again. I pulled it out with my other hand, wincing and smiled, looking up at Dermot, who was so much bigger than I was. I was not cowed. He was stunned. The dagger was silver… and I _wasn't_ cringing in pain? The dagger was pointed at both ends and wrapped with leather around a wooden handle in the middle. One end was cold iron and the other was silver. He glanced around taking in the demons, his father, Eric and then looked back at me. I was not hobbled by a deep wound from silver? Then he really looked at my _eyes_ and visibly blanched. He was totally lost. The Raedself let out a growl as she regarded him.

"Interesting fact about demons, Uncle Dermot. They're immune to both silver and iron. A useful bit of old world magic, that blood magic." I threw the double blade away from us and hit him as hard as I could in the shoulder on the side of his broken arm. He cried out in surprise and lost his balance as he swung at me with his good arm but I was far to fast for him. He was half human and I was really a vampire, after all, packing that extra punch of half-demon blood. He tried to lob some magic at me but missed. I knocked him to his knees and grabbed him by the throat.

"Tell me what you did to Claudine? Tell me, Dermot Brigant. Tell me you killed your own niece," I said, standing over him.

He cradled his broken arm with his other hand and looked up at me, his green eyes filled with pure hatred. He spat in my face. His father despised him, had loved Claudine and even me, more than him. He wasn't in the least sorry for what he had done to Claudine. He hated her because she had been loved. He might have brought Hunter for the Raedself but he planned to take advantage of my coming to rescue Hunter to see if he could get revenge for the years he'd spent locked up by his father for the Dieter business. He'd finally been let out because I had been turned and could better defend myself. So much for his supposed loyalty to the German Fae, I thought. He'd ally himself to whomever was convenient for him to get what he wanted, which time and again was revenge. And I was just vampire trash in his eyes. Why should they even care if he killed me? Such loathing of his own family… In my eyes, there was only one thing to do. Sure he had stabbed me, intended to kill me. But he _had_ killed Claudine. And there could be no forgiveness in my heart for that. In an instant, I pulled from my pocket the long thin steel cord and had it wrapped around his neck several times then released my grip on his throat as I caught up the other end of the cord and drew it tight. As he choked with the discomfort of the cold iron directly on his half-fairy flesh, I said,

"You would have done better with a stake. But not by much on this night. This is for _Claudine_." I garotted him. With the cutting force of the wire, my strength and the effect of the iron on his half-fairy flesh, he was quickly decapitated. I snapped his cervical spine and tossed his head at the Raedself feet. The scent of his blood was overwhelming. But I wouldn't give into it. I pushed his body toward her feet and regarded her calmly. I could see that she was very taken aback by a vampire who could resist fairy blood and who didn't even kill like a vampire. I swung my iron cord around menacingly.

"You should think twice about who you employ and how they blacken your name, Raedself. You should think about how many of your people you want to have meet a fate just as swift as his. You will leave me, and leave my entire family, out of your schemes. Or I will burn you to your knees, open the portals all over your forests and have you and your kind blamed for the havoc that whatever comes out to play wreaks. You will be overrun by angry humans and their fearful religious zealots who will destroy you. Consider it a promise of your personal Armageddon."

The Raedself looked at me in silence. The elves in the background seemed to draw back into their trees. The thought of more demons, more trees burned… But then, slowly, a bemused look began to form on the Raedself face.

"Such a fierce creature you always were. In such a demure guise. And now you are made even fiercer. You have done in minutes what Niall Brigant could not bring himself to do in the past six hundred years time. It is true then, what the child says? He killed his own and your kin?"

I looked up at her and said simply, "I'm sure you remember Claudine? She brought you to me. He _used_ you. It was an opportunity for him to get back at me and at his father. And you didn't even see it, which frankly amazes me. We had history, Dermot and I. He's the one who gave me to Dieter. Did he offer to help you get me here? Isn't it rather sloppy of you that you didn't trouble yourself to foresee any of this? Claudine's blood is on your hands. And it stains your feudalistic honor."

The Raedself regarded me coolly. Finally she looked me in the eyes and said,

"The terms of Niall's repayment must stand in some form. It is our way. But I find you are indeed, as he suggested, not what I had anticipated. If I may call on you to assist in circumstances of need, I will consider the debt of Niall Brigant repaid. You have had your retribution for your cousin's death, and for the theft of the child. If you agree, we are at peace, you and I."

With these words she extended her hand to me. I regarded her cautiously and steeled myself. Vampires didn't shake hands and I, in particular, really didn't like being touched. Nonetheless, I took her hand and felt rocked by her ancient magical force. I visualized reflecting it back to her and she rapidly pulled away from me, wide-eyed. She was _far_ more afraid of me than she wished to admit. She was worried that I could see and feel it. She was taken aback by my active resistance to her magic, which was now much stronger than when she had met me years before. She was keenly aware of the iron cord hanging from my left hand, the demon-like glow in my eyes. She suspected I could read her thoughts. She examined me as if to gauge how long I could keep the show of power up, but had concluded it was too long to be safe for her. There were already too many demons here ready to damage her, her people. Niall, who would likely move against her. The nasty tall vampire with his sword. And there was me. So little and… scary, with what I knew.

"Remember this, Raedself, if you wish to speak to me, speak directly _to me_ or to my Grandfather. If you go after anyone in my family again, I will come back and it will not be to chat. I give you my word on this."

She nodded to me and then yanked some magic from Hunter, which seemed to leave him again disoriented. But it seemed that he had been released from something. Then she simply disappeared, as did all the elves who had been visible in the grove.

I returned to Hunter's side and hugged him to me. He looked around my shoulder toward where Dermot's corpse lay.

"He killed her. Claudine… he stabbed her, again and again, even when she was on top of me. He threw some liquid on her to make her weak. And then he started stabbing her. She said you would find me, Sookie. She said you would _always_ find me." And then he burst into tears, just a child, a child who had seen truly horrible things. I rocked him in my arms and rested my cool cheek against his warm one. We stood there for a long time, and I felt everything dark fade from my thoughts. My vision began to return to something more normal as my thoughts shifted. I pulled back and held his face in my hands, touching his bruised cheek tenderly.

"I will always find you, Hunter. I'm so sorry this happened to you. You need to go home, to rest, to let your parents see that you're okay."

Niall stood next to us and said,

"I will take him back. You…" he said gesturing to the demons. "You and Frederico must return them." He looked at me with gentle eyes. It was odd to me, considering that I had just killed his son, my own great uncle.

I glanced back at Dermot. It was a just and fair death since he'd killed Claudine and attacked me, but still… he was his son. I started to speak, but he cut me off.

"We will speak of it another time. If we do at all. It was… his reckoning. You have liberated me, Sookie. From the greatest sorrow of my existence. She is right. You have done what I could not do." He glanced back at Dermot, his seven hundred year old half-fairy son and closed his eyes. Then he looked at me and said, "Séamus will be endlessly impressed."

He took up Hunter's hand and nodded to Eric. While regarding me with a look that I could only characterize as unreadable, he and Hunter softly faded.

Eric stood next to me and softly touched my cheek. I looked up at him. Could he feel it, I wondered. How fragile I now felt? I looked over at Rico and he nodded to me. Rico knew, he could feel it. I was running on vapors. I went over and retrieved Dermot's dagger. I'd save and give it to Hunter when he was ready. It was useful to have a weapon against both vampires and the Fae. I looked at it and shivered, thinking of my beautiful cousin who had fallen to it. I looked back again at Dermot. Maybe sometimes retribution was just and right in the supernatural world. Maybe it was the only way to assure that real evil didn't overcome what precious good there was in the world.

Together we all walked back to the open portal and retraced our steps.


	15. Chapter 15

**XV.**

Without drawing energy from the connection to Rico, I doubt I could have brought Eric back from Hotshot with me. I drew the energy to teleport from him and he gave it freely. But I was so weak by the time we arrived to the compound that I could hardly stand. The wound in my back had not fully healed, even though it wasn't the silver that seemed to affect me. I wondered if the demon and fae blood was causing me to heal more slowly? The energy of Rico's blood was very strong for my form because I felt like I had been battered as time wore on. Eric carried me upstairs to our room and set me onto our bed then undressed me carefully while I shook. He cringed looking at the wound but even more so at the bruising that seemed to be spreading everywhere on me, the cost of the magic I had let flow through me. It definitely seemed that Rico's blood, while increasing my strength had weakened my resilience and ability to heal. Eric looked at my back and all the bruising all over my arms and torso. He murmured to me, wondering if he should get Dr. Ludwig. I just shook my head.

"Just cover me. Leave me. No matter what, I should recover, right?" I asked weakly. I felt dizzy. I really hoped I wouldn't just pass out.

He stared down at me as if he wasn't at all sure of anything anymore.

"You aren't… exactly like us. Especially after having Rico's blood. I think we should…"

I tried to follow his words but then I seemed to fall into a state of semi-consciousness. After a while I was aware of voices, of being shifted around.

I opened my eyes as I felt the cool edge of a glass being pressed against my lips and opened my eyes to see Pam and Eric near me, with Eric holding a glass that smelled like real blood to my lips. It smelled of Were. I felt a sharpening of my senses and a bit more alertness. My nostrils flared.

"It's from a Were," I said puzzled. "How did you get blood from a Were?"

"Edwin gave it for you," said Pam softly. Edwin was our housekeeper Emily's twin brother. He'd been my bodyguard often when I was human and a student at Tulane. I drank but still shivered uncontrollably.

Eric moved aside and tiny Dr. Ludwig took his place, looking at me with her usual disapproval. She examined my arms and hands closely, then looked at my eyes. She said,

"Turn her over so that I can see the wound."

Eric stepped around her and murmured something to me that I couldn't quite catch, lifted me up then turned me over. It hurt like hell just being shifted. I felt the loose t-shirt, that I didn't even remember being put on me, being pulled up and heard a sound of dismay from Pam and a clucking sound of disapproval from the doctor. The next thing I remembered clearly was crying out, as if in pain, when Dr. Ludwig examined the wound. Was that really me crying out? I guessed then I lapsed into unconsciousness again.

When I next woke, Eric, Pam, and Thalia were in the room, all somehow looking rather pained. I was very disoriented but as if struggling against something and I felt incredibly weak. I realized that Eric was holding me down. Dr. Ludwig pulled a needle from my arm and Eric released a firm hold on me and lifted me up and saying firmly,

"You need to drink, Sookie. _Drink_." He said, pressing his torn wrist to my lips. I tasted his thick, almost sweet blood. I felt as if a spark illuminated inside me. Several moments later he withdrew his rapidly healing wrist and pressed a glass with blood to my lips. "You've almost been drained dry. _Drink_. You _must_ drink," he said in a whisper.

I hesitated, confused. Drained? Drink? And it was that slithery voice echoing in my head, though he spoke softly. Commanding me to drink. _Compelling_ me to drink. _Drink. _Suddenly, another spark seemed to kindle and I was absolutely overwhelmed with the hunger. I drank glass after glass after glass as they opened one bag of blood bank blood after another. Finally, I began to feel better and as if my back was healing from the inside out. Dr. Ludwig looked at me and scowled.

"You better not to go drinking demon blood again any time soon. It's _really_ not good for you. Such a lot of trouble you are. The _second_ time I've had to have you drained to fix you. A demon is much, much worse than a maenad. You're even worse trouble as a vampire. You _deliberately_ had his blood? Ridiculous!" she said.

"Half-demon. He's only half-demon," I managed to whisper. I wasn't crazy.

"You _are crazy_. Half or not, it was too much for you. If you do it again, take _less_ and prepare to be drained." She shook her head at me disapprovingly and then she turned and left. She was out the door before I realized she'd read my thoughts.

Pam looked at me and shook her head. "You tasted _awful._ If that's what Rico tasted like, even a bit, I don't even know how you had more than a drop. It was _disgusting_. I just don't know how you did whatever you did. Ugh! We couldn't stand it. She had to drain you into bags. Your blood was almost black."

Eric sat on the bed and picked up my hand, turning it over and back, looking at the color of my skin, which was back to normal and even a bit pink. He shook his head and smiled.

"Is it close to dawn?" I asked weakly, puzzled by how we could all still be awake when I'd thought we'd gotten back in the middle of the night.

"Well, that was about three nights ago, Lover," he said with a chuckle. "Dr. Ludwig has been here every night, several times a night. You were so out of it, and you weren't healing. We gave you blood, then we gave you my blood. No improvement. She finally decided we should just drain you and start all over from scratch."

I had trouble taking it in. "Three nights?" I looked around at them and still felt a little confused. I still felt pretty weak. I had been out for so long?

Thalia came over and patted my hand, saying,

"I'm going to go find someone to bite. I've _got _to get rid of this taste. You were always a little on the crazy side, Sookie, but this time was really something. Rico's going to be so happy he didn't kill you for real. He has been quite concerned. Listening to this music downstairs that you can't imagine. Thank goodness you're looking better. If you had died for good, I don't even know what I would be forced to listen to during the day while I try to rest. And no one can tell them a damn thing, those two. Except you, of course…" she said with a shrug and a sour face.

She left and Pam turned to Eric and said, while looking down at me,

"I want to know what she did. _Really._ No one would have drunk that blood without a very good reason. What did she _do _with it?"

Eric, still holding my hand, turned to Pam and shook his head. He looked back at me with eyes that just shone with pride and merriment.

"Really Pam, you probably won't even believe me. She opened the gates of the Fae Underworld. She recruited demons. She set fire to a forest that was thousands of years old, one tree at a time. She frightened fairies and elves. She killed a half-fairy with something that was barely even a weapon." He shook his head again. "Pound for pound she's the most frightening little vampire you're probably ever going to meet. I don't even know what else she can do but what I saw was quite enough."

"Does this mean we're officially not worrying about her anymore, then?" said Pam with a smirk.

Eric rocked my hand back and forth in his two hands.

"I think we should worry about staying on her good side," he said chuckling.

After a while longer Pam left and Eric rose from the bed, and kissed me gently on the lips.

"Just rest. I have to get back to work. You should call Claude when you feel up to it. He's very much wanted to talk to you." He paused for a moment and shook his head. "No one could believe what you did, Sookie. When you decide to do something, it's never in a half-hearted way, is it?"

I looked up and said wearily, "We're very alike in that way, you and I." I looked at his deep blue eyes. He'd stayed with me, without even questioning me, even after I'd had Rico's blood. I knew what risks I was taking but really, he didn't. And yet he went with me.

"Thank you for going with me, Eric. You gave me courage. I felt much safer because you were with me. I was… so afraid. I could do it because I was with you."

He stroked my cheek and smiled down at me with glowing eyes.

"I love you," he said with a whisper, and then left the room.

**

* * *

  
**

Two nights later we cremated Claudine's remains on a hill in Northern Louisiana. Niall brought Hunter and Eric and Pam drove from New Orleans and spent the day in Shreveport. I'd stayed in Monroe with Claude. Although Claude had long been in my mind one of the most self-centered people I knew, I had to say he was totally brokenhearted by Claudine's death. Their sister Claudia had been murdered about ten years before. Claude wanted the funeral to be at night, specifically so I could attend. He held my hand as we watched the burning pyre. His energy was so similar to Claudine's that it didn't bother me, though somehow, having Rico's blood seemed to have improved my hypersensitivity. Claude seemed to take great comfort in the fact that I had killed Claudine's killer, his own uncle. I was finally able to meet Séamus, Méav and Líadin, Niall's full Fae children, also my great uncle and great aunts. Claudine, Claudia and Claude were Líadin's children. I was very sad for her. Claudine had been such a gentle and vibrant soul. I knew the only reason Dermot had been able to bring himself to kill her was because she was so well loved. Perhaps the only thing that had exceeded his self-loathing was his jealousy. I wondered how it was that he had been so twisted with jealousy and hatred. The only way that I could understand it was to believe that he was mentally ill. Guilty but insane. I wasn't sorry that I'd killed him. I was just sorry that it had been, in my eyes, so necessary to do so. Niall had told me that for the past six hundred years Dermot had killed members of his own family and worked against the Brigants' interests time and again. He was hated by his siblings, even Fintan, my grandfather. Niall had never been able to bring himself to the point of killing Dermot or getting anyone else to do it. He kept hoping that Dermot would change.

I mourned Claudine. I couldn't imagine my world without her in it. She had died because someone had gone after me, albeit indirectly. I thought of the irony of how she had protected me so many times but that I would 'outlive' her. I had lost so much family in my short time on this earth. She had been precious to me. She had been my catalyst for understanding why I should be turned, to stay with Eric. She had looked at people as individuals, just like me.

Hunter came and stood next to me, with his arm around my waist. Claude, Hunter and I stood there watching the pyre, a fairy, a mostly human boy and a vampire, all of the same blood. It was an utterly bittersweet moment of family unity. Niall looked at us sadly and for the first time he truly looked his age to me. Weary and ancient. Séamus stood with his arm on his father's shoulder. His piercing green eyes regarded me with much interest.

**

* * *

  
**

Eric waited more than three weeks to talk about it, which I thought showed a lot of forbearance. In that time, I was aware of his watching me closely but giving me space. He didn't hassle me at all about only drinking True Blood. He let me brood about Claudine. He left us alone when Claude came and gave me Claudine's jewelry and some of her photo albums. And he didn't even intrude when I sat outside in the courtyard on the cool spring evenings talking quietly with Rico. But he watched me. The unasked questions in his mind were obvious.

In the end, Eric got his answers about most of it. As usual, we were in bed, snuggled up just a while before dawn. He got all the answers he wanted about the actual events. About what I owed Rico (my friendship) and why had Rico even been willing to do it (our friendship) and whether we were indebted to demons (they weren't like the Fae in that way, and they'd really loved eating German spruce according to Rico who had negotiated the whole thing and enjoyed seeing his cousins and some friends) and how I'd figured out how to open portals on the Crossroads (all with Rico's help and a very old book of his Fae paternal grandmother's that talked about the nasty Christians and their foul language) and could I find more (you bet and I had even read of an ancient way to make them, too, but had no inclination to try that one.) But the one question that Eric asked that I couldn't fully explain was why I hadn't told him that I could do some of these things months before.

On the one hand, I already felt like I was too difficult for everyone to fathom. I'd been there and done that so much of my human life. Finding myself in the supernatural world had been so gratifying. And then by fully joining it, I had lost myself again in the sense of not quite fitting in among my "kind". Of not meeting expectations because of some internal voice that made me different. And all those other voices in my head that set me worlds apart from everyone else by virtue of what I could hear. Feeling that even the person that loved me most found me frustrating, even maddening, because I wasn't like I was supposed to be, had been difficult. Pam, Rico and Claudine had helped me somehow work through all of the issues a second time. Claudine and Rico didn't fit the mold of their own worlds and Pam… Pam just liked me, loved me, however I was without being too critical about it. She'd chastise me to my face about how utterly impossible I was, then turn around and laugh about it and just find some way to make things work. But with Eric, I'd spent months somehow feeling like I was a frustration or a disappointment. He knew how I was before, knew me better than anyone I thought. So what gives? I'd ask myself. Why the great surprise that I wasn't like other vampires? I would never be a strong and aggressive vampire or a super efficient vampire. I would never be like Thalia or like Pam. But if things really went to hell and you wanted someone who could pull out all the stops and do the least expected thing, crazy Sookie Northman was the vampire you'd want to have in your pocket. In the end, I was grateful that Eric did finally, really get _that_. But that night we also understood each other better, maybe than we ever had. In the weeks that followed Our Little German Adventure, as he now called it, Eric had relented and decided that Stan was right. I was just fine. Actually, what I overheard him saying earlier that day to Pam was that I was _magnificent_.

When we went to the Alliance Summit the first week of June, a hush spread through the room as I walked in with Eric. Heads craned to see me and there were murmurings. I took Eric's hand nervously, because really I could see that all eyes were on me for a change and not on the dashing Viking King of Louisiana. I was usually just the Liaison in the cranberry red dress who was married to him. People just stood silently and stared in undisguised interest. Winston, the King of Missouri, regarded me with no small apprehension. He was on my list of people I really did not like and he knew it. Stan walked over and kissed me on the cheek, and chatted cordially with Eric and me. Roberto and Liesel hugged me warmly and greeted Eric. Eric and Roberto had sort of patched things up. Plus, I knew that Roberto thought he had really dodged a bullet by _not_ having me in his care. Demon-recruiting, Fae-threatening young vampires really didn't appear to be high on anyone's desired list of assets. Eric was enjoying himself as the King who had turned the rather awe-inspiring crazy telepath who fought elves and slew Fae relatives and came back to tell about it. Word had spread far and wide thanks to an over-talkative bunch of werepanthers and one Séamus Brigant, who thought that the Brigant family name could only benefit from some fearsome supernatural PR. I was their crazy dead Brigant and, surprisingly, they embraced me. Even though Rico and Hubert were glamoured, as always in the most pedestrian fashion, people murmured as the four of us passed, drawing back as if considering their distance from us very carefully. I was happy to think that no vampire in their right mind would ever, _ever_ go after Eric and try to take the state of Louisiana away from him now. My much larger than undead reputation probably ensured that he would be King as long as he wished, which was probably eternity. He was enjoying himself these days. He was protected by the Fae and had that totally crazy wife who read minds, binds half-demons and would know in advance what you were up to and probably kill you with her bare hands.

So what did I want to do with all this magical power I'd happened into? With my fabulous reputation as the 'Liaison Who'd Literally Walk through Hell and Back'? I sat at a table that night drinking True Blood with Eric, Roberto, Liesel, Stan, Joseph and Joseph's human girlfriend Montse and what I took away was the beginning of an idea. None of us could vote. Rico and I had discussed the fact that he and Hubert, who had long lived hidden in the US and who would love to have the Fae equivalent of a green card that fairies could get, were unlikely to ever be able to vote, even in their local community's elections, even if _all_ the Fae came out and even if they became naturalized citizens. This, Rico thought, was very unfair and I agreed with him. Eric had lived in the US for well over a hundred years. So had Pam. So had Roberto and Stan and Joseph. Liesel had been naturalized a US citizen as a Were but now as a vampire she had lost her right to vote because she was, technically speaking, _dead_. I was in the same boat. What did I really want? I wanted to vote. To have a say in my country's future and its laws. I wanted my friend Liesel to vote again. I wanted Pam to stop having to talk about Tan's vote as "our" vote, which she said she owned half of, since they'd married last month and it was a community property state. I wanted my husband, who had, brick by brick, rebuilt entire neighborhoods in New Orleans, to be able to cast his vote on tax issues in a state he'd helped in no small measure. In fact, all the older vampires I knew were so experienced with so much history under their belts, I really thought that if _anyone_ could make informed decisions about elected officials or important issues, it would surely be people 1100 years old or people who were 600+ years old and licensed attorneys in multiple states or people capable of running very large state administrations. So much for all my magical heritage. When Roberto asked me what I was up to these days I had a question for him.

"After you get the Federal District and Appellate Court Bar, do you remember how many recommendations you need for the Federal Supreme Court Bar?" Mr. Abbis, my US Constitutional Law professor at Tulane was a member of the Federal Supreme Court Bar. That was one. I thought it was only two that you needed.

Roberto just smiled at me. I might be a freaky vampire, but I was still the same old Sookie. I was already taking the July Bar exam in Nevada to represent Liesel's suffrage case in District Court as soon as I was licensed to practice in Nevada.

Every head at the table, including Eric's, turned to stare at me, rather puzzled at my question about the US Supreme Court Bar. Then Eric's face broke into a smile as his eyes met mine. Still same old me. Never anything halfway.

Some plans are even crazier than vampires recruiting demons to gang up on feudalistic elves.

* * *

**CODA**

**September 19, 2024**

**BBC World News….. Breaking News**

In a landmark decision, the United States Supreme Court has today rendered an opinion granting voting rights to all naturalized supernatural race citizens of the United States of America. A similar case dealing with suffrage for US-born supernatural citizens is now rendered de jure. S_chall, et al,_ a federal class action case brought before the Supreme Court in July 2023, sought voting rights for a class of twenty eight naturalized US citizens, including the vampire kings of four states, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nevada and Texas, fifteen Fae citizens and various hybrid citizens, including Liesel Schall an Austrian-born vampire, formerly werewolf, and for whom this case was named. The contentious case, fought by a legal team headed by well-known supernatural rights attorney Sookie Northman on behalf of Schall, and the remainder of the class, which included Northman's own husband, an 1100 year old Scandinavian-born vampire, has gripped legal headlines worldwide as a case dealing with fundamental civil rights in the United States. Chief Justice Jasper Roberts cast the decisive vote, joining an opinion written by Justice Dale Souter on behalf of four liberal Justices, offering the opinion for the vampire rights portion of the case that, as Northman had argued, the fundamental and underlying principles and rights offered in the US Constitution do not constitute rights solely for the 'living', but in the founding fathers intent rather constitutes rights for those with any manner of provable 'sentient existence'. Drawing on federal legal precedents of indigenous and native peoples, the legal term 'existing sentient races' has been used in language redefining vampire rights in multiple Vampire Alliance state statutes across the US. Building upon that platform, the US Supreme Court formally recognized vampires as the sentient race equivalent of humans in a prior case, _Northman/García _vs. United States Attorney General Robert Latham, heard in 2021. On the basis of the present decision, granting voting rights to undead or 'existing sentient races', the Court found no basis to deny the voting rights of naturalized Fae citizens who formed the other portion of the class suing for suffrage. The class, which originally centered on a suit brought in US Federal Court in 2019 on behalf of Schall and several other vampires, was joined by the Fae group who had sought suffrage under a similar class action case brought before the Louisiana State Supreme Court by Northman in 2020. Northman, herself disenfranchised after turning vampire in 2014, heralded the decision as 'another turning point in the US Civil Rights Movement'.

In other news, the government of Zimbabwe underwent a…

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If you made it this far, thanks for reading it. Catch you all on the flip side after _Dead and Gone_ is published on May 5.


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